Picture gallery of the hash:
Hash write up:
AA Rachael and Stéphane were the hares for the March hash and had bravely offered to host the on on après for food and general debauchery at their Gràcia based apartment.
The hash started more or less on time after listening to information (pre-planned excuses) from the hares about how the dust may be hidden in plant pot or obscured by the inhabitants of the city and tourists who have the affront to take to the streets and places of interest on a Sunday afternoon.
The on on was called and we were directed by the male half of the dastardly duo up a hill until the FRBs just ran out of dust and had to come back nearly to the start to take one of the Gracia districts many small side streets, thus the pattern for the first part of the hash was set.
New boy Pol proved quite adept at finding the wrong trail and running on not a lot more than hope, a skill later perfected and refined by Rufi. Somehow we managed to pick up Tit and his daughter Anna in the tangle of small streets and pretty squares and the pack was complete.
After a suitable period of disorientation in Gràcia, the hash was led towards Park Güel: now this inevitably involved going uphill! The trail was quite rightly set up about 8 flights of steep steps: most of the pack including one of the hares made use of the escalator so thoughtfully provided by the good city of Barcelona at great expense….it would have been rude not to.
We eventually entered the Park via some obscure back door and picked our way through the assembled crowds from around the world until we exited on the far side at a bar restaurant where Steph announced a beer stop, good, funded by the hash, even better. I managed to get myself and Sprout a beer before everyone else was thrown out for blocking the path of the waiting staff, but Steph and AA eventually managed to sneak back in and order the beer for the rest of the pack before a riot broke out. It was during this intermezzo that new boy Pol produced his hand held GPS and told everybody we had completed 7.73k so far. Now I might be wrong but I think this device may have had something to do with Pol’s overoptimistic trail running.
After the beer stop followed another 5k (according to GPS boy) of more parks and of course the eventual downhill (I missed this bit by setting off on an unplanned sightseeing trip on my own).
Back at AA Rachael’s and Steph’s we enjoyed the late afternoon sun on the terrace, drank beer, identified plants, drank beer, compared underwear, down downed sinners, played games, ate lovely food, drank beer and it all gets a bit fuzzy after that so this is where the report ends.
Thanks a million to Rachael and Steph for a great day and I hope they are twice as stiff as the rest of us for a few days.
Doggy