Painted lady Hash

We were promised painted ladies as we formed a circle on the outskirts of Turre. We set off under the bridge along the Rio Aguas. Across the fields, Turre Church came into view. The high speed train track ran along the other side of the river bed.

There were clouds and it was misty, but when the sun broke through it was warm The runners soon caught up with us. There were others enjoying the Spanish countryside. Cyclists and trial bikers.

We walked over the river bed and into a ditch, to get out we all had to clamber under the sluice gate, dogs too. As we headed back we noticed quite a few dry bones.

We did see a few painted lady butterflies, apparently earlier in the week there had been thousands, they are on migration to North Africa.

We arrived at the bridge we notice the runners were already back, fortunately they had left us some of the wonderful home made mince pies, there was even a carrot cake to celebrate the 7th Anniversary of the Indalo Hash House Harriers.

Where is the stable Hash?

verahash2014

We met at the coach station in Vera, with one hare, who was going to run, it was obvious that  might mean trouble. We were then set a quiz on the spelling of whisky or whiskey! The trails were apparently marked in white matt paint, the walkers were told to follow the markers and instructed that when we had gone past the stable we were to ignore the big R as that was a check for the runners.  The temperatures were beginning to soar as we set off in different directions. We walked by Lidl and under the bypass, we then saw our first check marker, it all looked very hopeful.

We then made our first mistake by not following a marker and ended up at a closed garden centre, after about twenty minutes we got back on track, verahash12014but by now we were behind the runners. The views to the sea were pretty, there was a breeze and we then made our next mistake, we followed a white marker, this looked hopeful as the track wound its way by a stable with horses.

 

verahash32014We continued on, following another marker, I heard  a lot of gunfire to the right and some interesting rock formation caught my eye, so I moved nearer to the edge to get a photo, there on the valley floor were the runners, making a fast exit. We met up with the hare, who informed us we should have ignored the marker, that had been just for the runners, although it was identical. We needed to go back to the main track to the stable.

We retraced our steps and continued along the dusty road, we saw no further markers, but reassured ourselves we were not lost as the runners were heading down a ridge in roughly the same direction. Ahead was a verahash42014broken down shack with a corrugated roof, apparently this was the stable we were looking for, although there were no horses, scattered on the ground very dry hard brown lumps and straw was evidence there had been at some time. I asked the hare where the big R was and he pointed across another field away from Vera. We followed slowly after the runners, we then came to a larger track which looked like it headed back towards the town, by now the runners were dots on the horizon even further away. We had been walking for over 50 minutes, unanimously we decided to make our own trail back to Vera.

verahash52014We saw this delightful dog on the way, it’s ears were large and hairy, not unlike donkey’s ears, but when I tried to get a photo the dog was shy. We also passed another stable with horses!

 

 

Back through the underpass, we waited around half an hour for the verahash62014runners to return and the circle, another eventful, hot and interesting Hash.

 

 

 

My question is : When is a stable not a stable?