Thanks to some last minute intervention from Acro and some reasonable pre-trail-markings by the hare (Push-up Bra) the small pack made it’s way to the start, a sort of cheery looking stone archway thing at the foot of a hill.
Guest hashmen from Shanghai Quasimodo and Joe joined Acronymph, Little Drunken Apple, PhoneBox, DoggieStyle and virgin Dave and the pack was away in reasonably good time for once. The hare suggested that while it was quite flat that Joe might not want to bring his scooter.

The pack set off up a short flight of stairs and along about 5 metres of flat ground before the trail began to climb. It was in point of fact the last flat ground the pack would see, save for a few metres at the top of Nangao Fang, until we got back to the start. So it climbed, veered off into the tea fields and then back on to the stairs all the way to the top of the minor peak. The trail then snaked it’s way up to Nangao Fang where the pack were rewarded with the stunning views. The pack were also at this point rewarded with a few metres of the flat ground they’d been promised.

The trail then took the pack down the other side of the mountain through more lush forest. The later start time of the run seemed to have caused a exponential increase in the number of mosquitoes which served, along side the failing light, as a good motivator to keep the pack moving.

Near the bottom only yours truly was dumb enough to follow the false trail for quarter of a mile through a dumping ground, building site, over concealed iron trip hazards. Somewhere round the course a question from one of the visitors caused the proverbial penny to drop and yours truly realised that while, of course, remembering the beer I’d completely forgotten to buy water. Acro solved this problem for us while, causing great offense to poor push-up Phone Box went off to run a bit further as she didn’t think it was long enough.

A brief (due to editing out the non family friendly parts) circle followed in front of what we now realised was an ancient tomb in the increasingly spooky failing light. Down downs for Push-up “fairly flat ground my bottom” the hare. Phone Box for insulting him with the extra run, LDA for fun and guests and virgins just to prove we’re a hospitable bunch.

After that it was pile into whatever space we could find in hash virgin Dave’s car (you’ll not bring a car again will you) and off to Maya for the on on.

In excess of 50 years between our oldest and youngest participant proved that we are a really inclusive bunch and not just for letting BottomFeeder come along.

On on, DoggieStyle.

Our first all Chinese hare pair, and what a lovely pair they make LDA and Phone Box, take note. We were back at Paradise which seems to be the venue where the circle seems to attract the most attention but more on that later. Yours truly is not, as you may have noticed, given to being terribly sympathetic to the hares but on this occasion they did themselves rather proud. The achieved a first for the Hangzhou hash bringing the pack in, as advertised, in about an hour, which is good especially with so many virgins in attendance. I do have a suspicion that we might have missed a few bits out though. The route managed to be interesting despite traversing our most visited hill. The only really suspicious bit of trail marking was the heart-shaped re-group, ah what a lovely couple of hares!

Virgins Daisy, Paul and Sylke joined us for the first time and Stoned Drifter joined us from Qingdao Hash, welcome all. This made a rather respectable turn out of 2 hares plus 11 hounds once you include the usual suspects DoggieStyle, Pushup (bra), BottomFeeder, Acronymph, Pelagic and Laura, Karin (not quite the usual suspect).

As the last runners trickled in we looked up at the gathering storm clouds and Push-up (bra) says “ah, we have the same kind of storms in Brisbane, this one is going to miss us.

“So push-up wasn’t haring with you so it ought to be nice and short and not too many hills then