Yesterday’s Hash may have been the best one ever for me. And the reason in large part was we spent a lot of time on perhaps the best beach I’ve ever seen. It was stunningly beautiful.
Puerto Princesa’sNagtabon Beach. A nice drone video of the beach at the link.“Where the sun hits the water and the mountains meet the sand…”“…there’s a beach that I walk along sometimes…” Those buildings at the far end of the beach, Oliver’s Resort, was our on-home location. Only accessible by foot…
So, Nagtabon beach was an hour bus ride from our hotel in Puerto Princesa. That included a 15 minute delay when the lead bus broke down. The drivers did some roadside repairs, got a couple buckets of water from a nearby house, and refilled the radiator. Pretty impressive really. Once we reached our destination we off loaded Hashers and supplies and hoofed it the half kilometer or so down the beach to Oliver’s. The Hare (Wild Wolf) advised there would be three trails with durations of 7, 5, and 3 kilometers. And two beer checks along the way! Beer checks were quite common in my Korea kennel but this is only the second time I’ve experienced them here in the PI.
And then we were “ON-ON”, on the beach as it were.That’s Salty Cum enjoying a cold beverage at the first beer stop.And then it was on up the mountain. The climb was mostly on the road, but it was steep and hot.Looking back from whence I came.That tricky Hare made us climb up an embankment. Once at the top we saw that we could have stayed on the road which curved around just past that house. Oh well.And soon enough we reached the second beer check.Your humble correspondent taking in the view.The unobstructed view of Nagtabon Beach from the top. As is my custom, I opted for the medium length trail…….which meandered its way steadily down the mountain. My Hash shirt makes for good camouflage, don’t you think?The descent was not too steep but did get tricky in places. Salty Cum was taking a photo of me when a woman behind us took a good tumble. Those roots can be treacherous if your foot gets caught while falling. At first the woman thought she had broken or dislocated her ankle. Fortunately that proved not to be the case, just a severe strain. I let her use my walking stick and Salty assisted her the rest of the way back. Almost back down to sea level.This portion of the beach was nothing but rocks. And that made for some tough hiking the last kilometer of the trail.Still pretty though….…and I got to practice my rock climbing skills. Which are pretty much non-existent……but I just leaned into it and made my way back “on-home”.
And so ended my first ever Hash Bash. Lots of fun, lots of interesting people from all over the world and of course, lots of beer!
Good times!
1 thought on “The best of times”
Seems to be a region worth coming back to. Glad it was a great day!
Seems to be a region worth coming back to. Glad it was a great day!