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