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RUN REPORT

Chardonnay’s Got Trail on Tap
22 October from John Turnbull Park, Lenah Valley
Hare: TAP
Run Reporter: Grizzly

Hobart Show Day is locally known for two things.

It’s the calendrical cue to get out into the garden and plant tomatoes; the start of three months of servitude for either a glut of fruit that can only ever be consumed if it is turned into something that is meant to be tomato sauce, or half a dozen small, misshapen globes of mediocrity that their growers will claim ‘still tastes better than store-bought’.

Show Day is also locally known for crap weather, as if the small gods of weather have a grudge against the Gee Whizzer and dagwood dogs. And tomato growers.

While the fate of next year’s chutney remains unknown, the weather this year was warm and welcoming and Hare TAP had been out on trail since sparrow’s fart to avoid the worst of the day’s non-rain.

Hashers have a hate-hate relationship with John Turnbull Park; metaphoric birthplace of the current titleholder as the ‘Most Hated Man in Hash’. There are few moderate trail options, most involve the sort of ‘head down, ring up’ action usually spotted on P*rnHub. Allegedly.

Surely TAP would seek out the gentle option. Three laps around the oval, perhaps.

But ‘no’.

With most of the usual suspects absent, the running Pack consisted of just Hooray and Snack Bar, sent off to do four laps of the oval. The rest of us started by milling around the RSL – more on that later – as trail could have taken a number of options, all of them ‘up’. Eventually Dyke called “On! On!” up Athleen Avenue, before strangely disappearing. After rounding a wooden power pole we spotted Dyke*, then spotted the FT. Stretching illusionary boundaries that even David Copperfield would baulk at attempting, Dyke was joined by Grizzly and In The Raw, while Prickit and Brazilian just stood wondering why the pole now looked pregnant.

* you might be able to take The Most Hated Man in Hash out of Lenah Valley, but you can’t take the ‘u’ out of ‘c-nt’.

True trail followed Lenah Valley Road before slipping onto the picturesque New Town Rivulet track. This pleasantness would not last, as the Pack was now boxed into a ‘kill zone’ of elevation. While the Kalang Avenue option was still in play, any Hobart-based Hasher with experience knew in their waters where trail would lead. It involved stairs and 50m of agressive elevation gain.

Thankfully the worst was over (unless trail was to suddenly head to Kunanyi) and the inward trail was a leisurely saunter down Pottery Road before turning onto a reserve, which was virgin territory for some.

Here we found the p!ss stop, in a nice little seating area above the RSL – more on that later. Here was an abject lesson for any Hare looking to subject a Pack to altitude sickness – sweeten the deal with a cracker of a p!ss stop. No one was talking about those stairs, because you can’t really say much with a mouth full of homemade lamb pies or mini vegie quiches, with a the option of a ‘grown up’ spider in a bucolic setting.

Last to arrive at the p!ss stop were Spoof and Growler, claiming to have ‘lost trail’. I can’t tell you why they couldn’t find trail, but they did manage to record a Strava PR from John Turnbull to the Lenah Valley RSL in doing so.

Consensus was that it was an enjoyable trail, with some off-road stuff to ward off the jaded winter street Hashing blues. Well done to TAP for setting trail backwards (so that she didn’t have to go UP those stairs) and managing to still get arrows pointing in the right direction. (Which is NOT toward the Lenah Valley RSL!)

There was plenty of food to finish off the night: eye fillet steak, sausages and halloumi, plenty of salads and ice cream to finish up. Happy Show Day!

On! On! Grizzly

DOWN DOWNS

Lip: Uber

• Hare: TAP. “One of the better runs of the year.” “Too many wallabies.”
• Growler and Cumonion: last week stood waiting by their ride home in the car park asking “Where’s Uber?“ The answer was ‘in the car’, just not the car that those two was standing by.
• Slippery, Hooray, Drawbridge: c*untry members
• Growler and Spoof: headed straight to the RSL instead of attempting trail.
• In The Raw and Grizzly: tried to hide behind a power pole. Epic fail.
• Dyke: Hashed the guts out of trail while having the temerity to wear his Interhash Ballbreaker shirt.
• Snack Bar: something about getting caught by Platypussy with his pants down. Maybe. This isn’t Hansard, you know.

• Prickit, Can’t Stop, TopDek, Arsecutter & Grassroots: boat rockers.
• Clearfell: went all the way to Shiploads to buy cheap tomato plants – then drove to Mitre 10 and saw that they were 60 cents a punnet cheaper.
• Drawbridge: was asked to pay Sonar’s entry into the Baskerville historics because the XU1 chews the juice.
• Snack Bar: had to go out for a massage (no happy ending) because the yoga mat is being replaced by electric one.
• Clearfell: were they carpet burns on his knees? No, got sunburn through the holes in his jeans.
• Hooray: short joke made too long.
• Hooray: touring around the state in luxury. Didn’t like it because it was “too decadent”.

Skols from the floor:

• Can’t Stop to Uber, Snack Bar, Growler and TopDek: retirees coffee club taking up all the seating in Banjos, leaving nothing for the ‘hard working people’. And Can’t Stop.
• Dyke to Can’t Stop: Dyke was lending a hand to clean up Can’t Stop’s backyard and took a trailer load of green waste to the tip. Tip employee had to call the manager because the trailer was full of a noxious weed.

Next week’s trail:

• 964 Oceana Dr, Tranmere, as set by Smallgoods and Luv Shack. Run reporter, Red Dress.

HASH FLASH

Photos of Run 1553

MISMANAGEMENT CUMMITTEE 2026