Ullacombe Farm was a new venue for City of
Exeter Hash. Perhaps that was why the
majority of the pack turned up late? At
11am there were only a handful of hashers in the car park, but over the next
ten minutes the numbers doubled and continued to rise even after the trail had
started.
The trail followed a section of the granite
railway. There were wild horses
wandering around who were not at all disturbed by the hashers, but managed to
obscure a vital mark for the walkers, who ended up on the main trail instead.
The ferns and stinging nettles were
abundant as we headed down a long path towards the first long/short split. The longs headed up hill and then down past a
weather station which piqued Bull Bait’s interest; he felt it necessary to go
and investigate while the rest of us continued.
The longs and shorts came together for a
sweetie stop, near the Woodland Center, where the hare warned us that there was
more hilly terrain in the second part of the trail. When we reached the second long /short split
I went long and from then onwards the whole thing becomes a mystery. Bull Bait, CC, Splat, Rocky and I stayed
together as a small group and obviously went very wrong at some point as we
revisited the Woodlands Centre several times before giving up and consulting
with technology. This in itself was
difficult as there wasn’t much of a mobile signal and we were having difficulty
orienting the google map. (We put this
down to oxygen deprivation and lack of food at the time). Helpfully, Stix who was following my trail
from home advised us that we were as far from the starting point as we’d ever
been and there was various textual correspondence between Stix, Speedy and I in
order to get us moving in the right direction. Eventually, we realised that we may have been
mislead by an ambiguous mark and found a tail leading us in the right
direction, but quickly lost it again.
At the edge of the wood we found the road and decided to stick with it
to find our way home. King Louis was out
looking for us in his car, but fortunately we found him near the turning off
the main road back towards the Farm, where we enjoyed a hearty roast dinner.
I’m not sure whether we had a circle or not
as we were back a good while after everyone else. Twin Peaks will never give her car key to CC
to look after again (as she couldn’t go home) and the rest of the pack went
hungry and thirsty as all the drinks and food were in my car. Anyway, all’s well that ends well as they
say. It was an interesting area to hash
in and I’m sure we’ll be back.
Next week we're at The Obelisk at Mamhead - No Butt and Mouthful (map) Don't forget to RATE THE HASH!
Next week we're at The Obelisk at Mamhead - No Butt and Mouthful (map) Don't forget to RATE THE HASH!
