Month: May 2013

Run 1583

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Run 1583

Wednesday, May 29, 2013
7.30pm
End of Shun Tat Street, Hung Shui Kiu
Hare: Golden Balls

We’ve run from here before. Basically find your way to Castle Peak Road and turn into Shun Tat Street. Drive up to where the Yuen Long Highway crosses overhead and park there.

Apologies for lack of last week’s run report, it hasn’t materialized.

Hareline: The hareline for the next six months is under preparation. If you have a particular date on which you’d like to set a run, or on which you definitely can’t do so, put your hand up now. Bear in mind these special dates:

September 18, Run 1600 (committee)
October 30, AGM (committee)

Run 1582 / Report 1581

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Run 1582

Wednesday, May 22, 2013
7.30pm
Car park at the top of Wan Tau Kok Road, next to old police station
Hare: Zimmerframe

Next hare: May 29 – to be announced.

Run 1581
The Loneliness of a Short Distance Runner
By Spain Man

The emails had gone out to confirm that the run was staring from a car park on Wo Keng Shan Road off Shau Tau Kok Road. Cock!

Expecting the usual Wednesday night shenanigans on the Tolo Highway I was most surprised to arrive whilst there was still a glimmer of daylight but by the time I was parked the darkness was closing in. This was to the delight of a couple looking furtive in a small car parked away from all the others. The hare’s car was in attendance and One Eyed Jack was the next arrival. The hare’s car was checked and the cold engine revealed he had been gone for several hours. We made use of our time by looking for a bit of trail as PLA helicopters circled with search lights on. OEJ soon confirmed that the trail started out by the main road.
The arrival of Eunuch with the RA and GB as passengers was heralded by the usual backfiring of the Forester as it swung wildly into the carpark and screeched to a halt next to the courting couple. Doors flew open, bouncing off their bodywork as GB and Mango leapt out and proceeded to get naked and change for the run, pressing athletic ham against the windows of these unfortunates.
The small car burst into life as the unhappy couple fled the scene with similar gusto.
Then the hare suddenly appeared, apologising and grovelling for a crap trail – it had all gone wrong. Fences everywhere, packs of dogs, triad settlements, snakes, you name it! We were promised a very short flat boring run after all his trying and with that the pack shot off except G-Spot who was fiddling with his GPS – anyway OEJ had spotted trail earlier so no problem.
Around 10 minutes later I was back to ask the hare the way – ‘Straight across the road, are you stupid or something?’ So off I go, over a bridge and into a village of gardens, trail twisting about with intermittent chalk arrows. Suddenly onto a check! Marked? I must be following the wrong trail, this is N2TH3? Then another – what are they up to? It must be an evil ploy.
The zig-zagging continued and I knew I was well behind as there were lizards relaxing on the warm path and addled locals performing tai chi with sharpened agricultural implements and buckets, all equally startled to see the appearance of another gweilo. Then dogs were getting very excited in the distance giving a glimmer of hope that the pack could be caught.
Not to be, as some excessively optimistic checking at the main road overlooked the inevitability of a direct route back to the buckets. Salesman and Mango had gone out hash training whilst the rest refreshed. On the hare’s return a few down downs were administered beneath the infrared gaze of the bemused PLA strafing us with their underemployed technology, and the conversations somehow moved from no-show visitors scared off by Salesman to the NW Scotland Torridonian Unconformity of 3.5 billion years ago, whereupon the beer ran out and we arsed off.

Run 1581 / Report 1580

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Run 1581

Wednesday, May 15, 2013
7.30pm
Wo Keng Shan Road
Hare: Salesman

Hare says: Start from the first signed car park on the left of Wo Keng Shan Road (the road to the NENT landfill), off Sha Tau Kok Road – about 150 metres in.

Next hare: May 22 – Zimmerframe
The hareline

Also don’t forget the SKH3 Shekou weekend / bike ride / hash May 18-19. Last chance to get your visa.

Run 1580
Dodging Lightning
By Golden Balls

It was dark in Central at 5 o’clock and the drizzle was relentless all the way through Kowloon, Tsing Yi and Kam Tin. But on crossing the divide at Kadoorie Farm the rain became a deluge. No chance of any trail surviving. Then a call from Mango Groove: “The start has moved to Eunuch’s house.” Which was just as well because there was no shelter in the park where we were supposed to go. When the taxi got to Eunuch’s country manor he was there at the door with an umbrella to usher me into the warm confines of his walled compound. In the house two charming young ladies who were not Eunuch’s wife were enticingly curled up on the sofa. But any thoughts that he’d provided these as an alternative to the normal Wednesday night exertions were soon put paid to.
The pack – Mango Groove, G-Spot, Gunpowder Plod, One Eyed Jack, visitor Spank Me and myself, unsurprisingly small given the pother raging overhead – were told to follow Eunuch around the trail while he attempted to refresh it with the single bag of cornflour he had left. Clearly any sort of head-start would be pointless as the flour would be gone within a minute. As we set off the first flash of lightning zinged over our heads.
It was pandemonium from the first check, with Plod, G-Spot and me finding trail on lamp-posts along a concrete path while Mango, OEJ and Spank Me found trail in a stream bed (how?). My group came to a place that may have been a check, with four possible directions and no indications, and spent quite a while looking. Then the streambedders arrived with Eunuch and went off in the direction of Cloudy Hill. I caught up with them and took the lead, becoming quite adept at spotting the vestiges of flour blobs (a faint smear) that marked the original trail. As we went uphill on a muddy path more lightning flashed quite close. Eunuch was there. “Don’t worry,” he said, “We’re not going very high. In fact THIS is the high point.” Mango charged past just as the trail went from graveyard to overgrown path-turned stream shiggy, great fun, Eunuch eulogising, “This is what I love about Hong Kong: it’s wet, AND warm.”
No sign of the other four. “They’ll be alroight,” the hare kept reassuring himself. “Look, the paper has held,” indicating random vestigial scraps and shreds of the stuff. After a while we emerged back into the Yuen Leng roads. “I’ve got no flour left. But they should be able to find their way back. Shouldn’t they?” He looked far from convinced, and went back to look for them after telling me where the trail was supposed to go (out to the railway line and past the “pagoda” back to his house).
When I arrived runners were coming in from all directions, including the hare. Nobody really knew who’d done what but it didn’t matter. There was an esky full of beer and a yard full of riotous craic, including Eunuch setting a toad loose in his house and Mango demonstrating his new mojo outfit for when he’s a lurve machine and doesn’t want to be recognised.

The secret lover
The group: Eunuch, Plod, G-Spot, One Eyed Jack, Mango, Spank Me (in helmet)

Run 1580 / Report Run 1579

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Run 1580

Wednesday, May 8, 2013
7.30pm
Kau Lung Hang playgound (near Eunuch’s gaff)
Hare: Eunuch




Next hares: May 15, Salesman; May 22, Zimmerframe
The hareline 

Run 1579
Mayday!
By Stunt Double

N2TH3’s daytime run starting from a very nice barbecue site overlooking the mighty Plover Cove Reservoir with the rain holding off unusually on a public holiday. Hashers arrive in dribs and drabs with the hare Beer Tits already done and preparing a BBQ to replenish the energy to be exerted. Her SP Luk Sup Gow wanders back complaining like hell about his back and rumour has it from Golden Balls that it could be due to him laying the trail in sperm. The pack sets off across the Brides Pool Road and straight up a challenging steep climb towards the Pat Sin Leng range. As Salesman and I struggle going up the hill, geriatric Bogbrush unbelievably rushes past us effortlessly with his new lease of life. Is it true he had a stroke or was it a shock from a drop in the financial markets?


A cheeky check-back was set on the first rambo and wimps split which led the rambos further up the climb. Monkey Sh*t was first to hit the check-back with Eunuch and I’m sure the b#*!#@ds waited until we almost got there before turning back. Trail was to the split following the same trail as the Wimps. It went along a nature path leading to the Ag & Fish centre to the second rambo-wimp split: wimps back home on Brides Pool Road and rambos across the road to the police recreational quarters and into a shiggy mound where Plod had previously set a run which Beer Tits and LSG didn’t do. It was then back down to Tai Mei Tuk and across Ting Kok Road and into the village. At this point back-marker Golden Balls was heckled by the king of the Free China Hash, Acorn, and family from their car.

Into a building site and running through the back of the site ending in a bizarre farmer’s plot secluded from civilization and surrounded by banks of vegetation and jungle. Plod’s comment was an opium or crack den under the radar of the police…not for long. This was after I found him doing something queer with his face down in the farmer’s field before muttering, “I love this.” A small escape up an embankment was laid with trail – it was here that GB heard some crashing in the shiggy behind him and assumed it was a fast-moving late-comer. But then up on the catchment road back to the rambo-wimp split he encountered Acorn’s family who confirmed it was Acorn trying to catch him. “Not on this hash mate,” said GB with a sudden burst of speed that took him out to Bride’s Pool Road and back home to end a thoroughly enjoyable run. 
     
Beer, circle and lots of barbecue food to celebrate the workers of the world and a good turn-out for N2TH3 of 33 (including ankle-biters).  To end it all was a fantastic treat from Moa as she arrived to pick up the inebriated Salesman. Mussels with white wine and herbs were cooked up for the stragglers and washed down with Skol…style.

Plod, Dingaling

Beer Tits and sisters

Bogbrush, Hoover, Wan Hung-lo, GB, LSG, Salesman, Desperate Dan


Snakepit Dash

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Shekou Weekend
18-19 May, 2013

There’s a Shek Kong Hash weekend in Shekou coming up that may be of interest to some. Basically it consists of a Saturday afternoon waterfront ride of 20km from Futian (Lok Ma Chau) to Shekou, an evening on the town starting at the new Snake Pit, and a hash on Sunday afternoon in Futian using not a single public vehicular road and including shiggy. There are options to ride back from Shekou to Futian on Sunday or not to ride at all and just go over for the Saturday night booze-up and the Sunday hash. Full details here on the NT Bike Hash website. Shekou map below.

Remember that if you’re not Chinese you’ll need a visa.

Philosophy

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Philosophy

Hashing is a serious business, as shown by these excerpts from a recent lesser hash run report:

“I…think about variety of terrain and how a run should take you through unique landscapes that require you to concentrate about how you’re running, about your footwork, and how that should get you to change your body rhythms.”

And:


“Safety is another factor that I keep in mind when setting a run. It’s kind of a fine balance, trying to figure how to keep people interested in the run, a little bit scared even, and yet somehow within the margin.”

And:


“I like to think of every run as being like that scene in that movie, what’s it called? Oh yeah, ‘Lost in Translation’. Remember that scene at the end where Bill Murray runs up to Scarlett Johansson and whispers in her ear? Of course, the audience is left guessing as to what was really said — and what ends up happening is that you project your own subconscious into the vacuum of that space – it becomes a place where we enter into the film, so to speak. That’s how I see today’s run.”

Well, good to get that known. I think we’re on the same smorgasbord.

The Northern New Territories Hash says:

“There is Wednesday and there is a run. The run has shiggy, you work up a sweat, get exhilarated on a darksome ridge, and then there is beer. That is all ye know and all ye need to know.”

– From the N2TH3 1400th Run booklet, November 25, 2009