Run 1579

Wednesday, May 1, 2013 – daytime run
Start 2.30pm
Bride’s Pool Road, first picnic site on the right after the police quarters
Hare: Beer Tits

SP says
There shall be a barbecue and people can bring food if they want to eat
Meet 2pm-2.10pm at Hong Lok Yuen side road
Run starts 2.30pm
The idea for the early start is to get people watered and fed before the sun goes down as the next day is a school day
There’s a pagoda for the inevitable rain for one of my runs

Next hare: May 8, Eunuch
The hareline

Run 1578
Dream Sequence
By Gunpowder Plod

Short run? – in your dreams

The Hare, that beautiful, bouncy bird with the gorgeous giggle (also known as Tangerine Dream) instructed us to meet in the dingy and dangerous back streets of Taipo town, somewhere near where she crams two-year-olds for their HK certificates.

After some discussion, we stuffed our bags into Stingray’s boot and then gathered in a gloomy park to get our run briefing. “It will be a short run,” she says, “with a split; about an hour.” (Lying cow!) So Plod, Stingray, Mango, Golden Balls, One Eyed Jack and Salesman head off along the river while LSG volunteers to help TD get the beer. Not from the nearby Wellcome, it transpires, but half way across town at P&S so TD can get her stamps while LSG lugs the beer.

The trail leads up the hill and through the villages where Mango runs over an old lady, leaving Plod and Stingray to get an earful from her outraged relatives. Then we emerge into the dual-carriageway area to a check where, it later emerges, GB tells Salesman not to call on until Plod has disappeared around a corner far away in the opposite direction.

Then its up to another check where GB, Mango and Salesman all go charging left leaving Plod, OEJ and Stingray to climb up and on. Up and up they go, and apparently GB takes one look at this and does a U-turn back to the start in search of crisps.

Our three trail-blazing heroes, way ahead of Mango and Salesman, emerge at the top and onto the road. At this point, Stingray and Plod decide to stay on the road come what may (as they did last week), but at the many checks this turned out to be the correct option and they left the trailing pack way behind, reaching the split alone. 

Here Stingray decided to wimp out, leaving the rambo to Plod, reluctantly followed by Mango. At the first check, Plod got it right and despite bawling on every few seconds, was way ahead at the top of the lovely shiggy trail over the hill and down the other side. Mango, plaintively calling “Plod, Plod, wherefore art thou you front running bastard” and other pleasantries finally shoved Plod aside near the bottom only to be caught in the villages of effing Lam Tsuen Valley!

For the best part of the next 2K, Mango trailed in Plod’s wake, eventually holding hands, until Plod was rudely elbowed aside by a sweaty Salesman, hotly pursued by Mango, leaving Plod to plod lonesomely on by himself. Nevertheless he managed to overtake a geographically challenged Mango near the finish.

Some short run; 10.6Km and 1Hr 45 Mins!!

Non runners: LSG, Beer Tits, Kerry and Eunuch.

Run 1578

Wednesday, April 24, 2013
7.30pm
Gili Gulu, Po Yick Street, Tai Po Market
Hare: Tangerine Dream

Next hare: Luk Sup Gow, May 1 – public holiday day run
The hareline

Run 1577
A Bridge Too Far

Once again the crappy weather moved in for Wednesday night, this time One Eyed Jack’s run at Mui Tsz Lam. The pre-run deluge meant that OEJ had to go off after the start to re-mark bits of it. As the mosquitoes noshed us in the ungodly humidity of a sopping sitting-out area, Eunuch, Stingray, Mango Groove, Dingaling and Gunpowder Plod – the hard core – were dealt the rather alarming briefing, delivered in OEJ’s sonorous border brogue: “The stream might be a bit swollen. And when you come down off the ridge, turn right. Don’t carry on or you’ll break your neck.” The only alarmed person there was Paul, a formidable runner of yore who had come along to see his buddy Golden Balls, but cited the dubious claim that he’d just given blood as reason not to run. Golden Balls himself had an equally dubious claim, something about a shard of fibreglass lodged in the ball of his foot – and so the Febrile Five set off into the murk.

Soon they came to the stream. Eunuch did his Eunuch thing and just waded in up to his waist. The stepping stones were invisible in the churning maelstrom. Mango tried to jump across and fell in, but the nimble Dingaling managed to get across relatively unscathed. Plod and Stingray stood on the banks, a strange drone of nasal Estuary combined with a sort of huffing and bristling emanating from them before they as one turned around and went for a road run in Ma On Shan, antennae quivering.

Eunuch climbed the hill closely pursued by the grunting hippo of Luton but after they crested it the expected move by the finest downhill merchant in hashdom failed to materialise as Eunuch strode out on the ankle-breaking glissade to finish a few minutes clear. Dingaling, no downhill slouch himself, eventually reeled in Mango on the 2km run-in along Mui Tsz Lam Road. Those three, back around the 70-minute mark, got back several minutes before the road runners.

At the finish, Golden Balls had been joined by Luk Sup Gow in scoffing all the runners’ snacks. The beer esky was suspiciously lightweight. Paul, under attack from mosquitoes who wanted his immaculate Canadian blood, had long gone. We will never, ever see him again.

There was the usual riotous insult-trading and beer-throwing. And then everyone went home like the good boys they are.

Run 1577

Wednesday, April 17, 2013
7.30pm
Mui Tsz Lam Road, Ma On Shan
Hare: One Eyed Jack

Opposite Chevalier Gardens. Drivers take Mui Tsz Lam Road from Hang Tak Street about 400m and park at the rest garden nears WSD compound. Pedestrians take the MTR to Tai Shui Hang and walk/taxi 1km.

Next hare: Tangerine Dream April 24
The hareline

Run 1576
Face Muff
By Golden Balls

“She’s ill and can’t do it,” decreed Fartypants when I called him on some unconnected matter six days before Walky Talky’s date with destiny. No, not the Hong Kong edition of Dogging With Dylan but something altogether darker, seedier and more demonic: the Northern New Territories Hash hare duty.

And so it was that the Hare Raiser sent out appeal after appeal for a solution to this crisis. Responses varied from the reluctant (I’ll set a run but only from my gaff in the middle of nowhere – the GM) through the sublime (Tag hash at Tai Po Kau Forest! – LSG) to the ridiculous (Get One Eyed Jack to bring his run forward a week – Mango Groove). In the end, with no practical solution in sight, GB decided to set a simple, unrecced trail from the pub. To avoid the likelihood of nobody turning up, he pretended Walky Talky was well again and haring. This combination of birds and booze should get the punters out in their droves. Wrong!

The day started overcast. I’d never seen it so cast. It got more and more cast as the day went on, until the castness did that thing where it becomes wetness. Undeterred, I got to the King’s Belly at 7pm, and in light but persistent rain set off with chalk and flour. No bogroll though. My earlier attempt to purchase a single roll at the supermarket had ended in acrimony when the staff tried to make me pay for the whole pack of 12 after I’d extracted the one I wanted. I fled, bogroll-less.

This in part led to my decision not to go up into the hills of Tai Po Kau. That, and a dodgy lower back that wouldn’t take kindly to sliding around on muddy trails. So I determined to set a simple, urban run celebrating the attractions of Tai Po Market: Up Wan Tau Kok Hill, down to Kwong Fuk Road, nullah path towards new Tai Po, then dodge back to Bobby London, up the alley and back over Kwong Fuk into the shopping centre, more alleys, Gili Gulu, the market street, then up the nullah towards Tai Wo, sneaky checkback and up the hill to the old railway station, then down through the villages past the spacecrafty market and home. 70 minutes out.

Back at the pub Plod and some bloke that had run with us years ago were tucking into fish and chips. “Sick,” explained Plod, and he wasn’t complimenting the food. Then Eunuch appeared with a beer. “Sick,” he offered. Gloria turned up. “I’m doing the quiz,” he quipped. There was LSG. “Family,” he said apologetically between mouthfuls of nachos, indicating Beer Tits and Phil with his Carlsberg bottle. Various sometime hashers could be seen lurking in the shadows. “So who’s doing the run?” Turned out it was Mango Groove and Stingray, and they only set off because they felt sorry for poor Walky Talky setting a run in the rain. Vindication of a sort I suppose.

So we formed a pub quiz team, and it turned out that the quizmaster was the freshly shaven Gloria making his debut. We named our team…

My Face Has No More Muff

Run 1576

Wednesday, April 10, 2013
7.30pm
King’s Belly, Tai Po
Live run!

The hareline

Next run April 17, One Eyed Jack


Run 1575
The Walking Wounded
By Go West

Run 1575

Wednesday, April 3, 2013
7.30pm
Kau Lung Hang pagoda
Hare: Dingaling

The following day is a public holiday, so Chemical Ali has very graciously offered to host a swarm of smelly hashers at his vodka palace in Yuen Leng after the run. Come along and earn your poison.

Run 1574
The Dog Delusion
By Gunpowder Plod

God mocks WhySoSyria