Good to the Last Drop's Last Hash – Friday 30 March 2007

Well I was suppose to hare today but Martina (Good to the Last Drop) is moving to Vietnam and wanted to hare her last hash so she set the trail with Wesley and Bogey instead. After last weeks sandstorm I was more than happy to hand over the task!

Today’s hash was at the Visitor Centre. Really nice location, a little way’s from Ma’adi but highway nearly all the way there so its easy to get to.

It was stinking hot, there were loads of hares but most of them didn’t actually come on the trail! Martina came for about half of it and another guy met us as we were coming back, but most of them sat around drinking beer and falling asleep in the sun.

We were only about 10 minutes into the hash when Bogey ran off – she just bolted and wouldn’t come back to Martina for ages… As Martina was the only hare on the trail we followed her chasing Bogey until we came upon the trail again.

The walk was pretty good, Doreen and Powla had a couple of friends with them so the four girls ranged ahead sussing out false trails and the best way up and down the hills.

Back to the circle and nearly everyone was called in for one reason or another – we had no Hash Beer because Aler was in Turkey and Useless didn’t make to the RV. He was at the ACE club but not enough people came past to pick people up… in the end four people didn’t get rides. The Hash Trash described it as ‘four fluent Arabic speakers who couldn’t manage to arrange a cab!’

So we got Bad Lay and French girl to do the beers – unfortunately no Aler or Useless also means no cups, water to wash the cups or table. Luckily the hash has many ingenious people so one guy had a box of jam jars in the car that we used as cups and Wesley always carry a 40 litre tank of water in the car so we could wash them… then Dougal backed his 4x4 up and opened the back so we had a table. Helpful useful people :)

As it was Martina’s last hash she got many down downs for a variety of reasons. She’d decided to forgo the leaving mug and plate (mug for all members, plate for committee members) and instead we had a charity raffle – all prizes were donated and the proceeds are being donated to an orphanage to buy soap powder. Apparently the BP wives club investigates charities in Egypt to make sure they are kosher and so Cathy (Alpha Bitch) suggested this orphanage for Martina’s charity raffle. Part of the deal is they don’t give the charity cash (not a real trusting bunch … but from experience I can see why) they buy products for them. This orphanage said what they really needed was soap powder to wash the clothes of the kiddies… I think we raised over 3000le (about AUD660) which is a lot of soap powder! Alpha Bitch is going to sort out delivery to the orphanage.

Towards the end of the circle we made Martina (and Dougal) drink from one of the ‘contraptions’. This time it was the one with two pipes so they got on their knees and Gorillas poured beer into the spout, turned the valve and Dougal and Martina gulped down the beer – this is a very messy operation so when Dougal came back to the edge he had more beer on his shirt than went in his mouth I think.

After this they presented Martina with a bunch of flowers. I think she was really pleased with the flowers. It’s something different from the mug etc and kinda shows her that all her efforts were appreciated. She’s designed and organized the last 20 or so t-shirts and created the calendars and screen saver – done heaps for a fairly ungrateful bunch for the last 4 years or so… it was nice for her to get the flowers.

Then we went home, washed up and headed to the On-On at Red Onion.

I got the same meal I’ve had every time – the nut steak. I keep thinking I’ll branch out but 3 or 4 times in a row now I’ve gotton the same thing – its tasty :)

We didn’t stay too long, we got there late, ate our meal and left. We had another party to go to. A friend of Wesley’s was having a house warming. Derek and Jacqui – oil guy and his wife have been in Egypt for a couple of months and have been doing up their apartment. It so nice. Huge – massive balcony, roof access. Wesley was so jealous coz it’d be perfect for Bogey and isn’t much more than he’s paying now. C’est la vie – he gets jealous every time we see a new place that’s got a bigger balcony – his place is great, it’s huge too, but there isn’t a garden or much outside space for Bogey.

We’d just eaten dinner at the on-on and Derek had put on a massive spread of food. There must have been 40 chicken drumsticks on one plate – a whole dinning table piled with food, plus chilli and some other random hot dishes. We had a few beers, but we were pretty tired so didn’t stay too long. We had extra people with us, Mary Fran of course was with us, plus Virgin Captain (cos he’s staying with us at Wesley’s) and Toby. Toby is an engineer working on building the new Kuwait embassy. Wesley has been in contact with Toby for a couple of weeks about Baharyia next week. We were thinking of going in his 4x4 with him, but now we’re thinking we’ll rent a 4x4 ourselves. Gets expensive, but I like the idea of being in our own car.

We used Virgin Captain as an excuse to leave coz he has an early flight on Saturday. It was nice, but we were tired so we bailed and drove to the edge of town to get Toby onto the Corniche so he could drive himself home.

All in all a good Hash. On-On.