Monday 9th June, Artichoke Inn
It was good to be back in the Teign Valley. After a lot of parking shenanigans we circled up in the car park across the road from the Artichoke Inn, Christow. Unusually there were no announcements, so over to the hare. Forrest warned us that the first long was ‘long’ and something about frisky stirks. I’m sure he said that the long would be around 8, the shorts less, and the walkers even less. Duly warned, off we set….inevitably up a long hill with Poacher and Bee Flicker leading the way.
I confidently predicted that we’d be going uphill all the way to the reservoirs, but I was proved wrong at the first long when we ended up going DOWNhill to join a lane which was heading back to Christow! We were soon heading back uphill though, and this was the theme for the rest of the evening. I’m pretty sure it was 90% uphill somehow.
Sure enough we found the cows although they seemed more interested in eating grass than what we were up to. Although tales from the pub reported they took a keener interest in some of the later arrivals. There was some brief milling around and a bit of confusion at one junction, then Poacher called us On On and we were heading down into Moor Barton Farm. Wet Johnny paused to make friends with another herd of cows, this time through the safety of a fence. Downhill through the conifers and we reached the reservoirs; the still, calm waters grey under the overcast sky.
Over the causeway and we turned right to follow the shore of Tottiford. The longs had regrouped and we crossed the Kennick dam together and plunged back into the forest, into the gathering dusk. Finally we were back out onto the road and heading downhill….surely we must be nearly there, I hadn’t brought a torch! I’d almost forgotten about the OS stop which turned out to be Forrest’s trademark refreshing orange segments, complete with a glorious view over the Teign Valley.
There was one more obstacle; an incredibly steep field and then a narrow, overgrown (and steep!) path down into Christow. We caught up with the shorts/walkers, and then spied the On Home back to the pub, who’d put on vat of chilli for us.
Pisswell had brought a bag of eclectic drinking vessels and awards with her, apparently with the sole aim of palming them off on unsuspecting hashers. The first award went to Forrest for the trail, he seemed to need little encouragement to get down on his hands and knees to drink it from the dog bowl. Psycho tried to award a down down to Wet Johnny but was foiled as he’d sloped off. Instead it went to Smellie for become ensnared twice in the brambles on the final descent. There was a lot of discussion about the genders of urinals, before Smellie settled on the ‘female’ version and drank her half through that. Next up (I think) was Miss Inn, for not being miss-in at all who opted for the tiny wellie, then Shit Faced for his 300 run badge. The last award went to Strap Dancer as a welcome returnee.
Thank you Forrest for an excellent trail, and on-on to next week!
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