A Man Called, “Horse!”

By Cock Of The South

When the pack gathered at the Kau To Shan park there was much expectation of the sort of shiggy run often furnished by G-Spot from this location. This expectation was tempered by the knowledge that the hare was the Northern’s own urban specialist, Stingray, but nevertheless as Golden Balls led us down the steps to Tai Po Road there was still good reason to think it was a decoy, a ploy to make us lose height before sending us back up the mountain via some seldom-trod, brambled-up backwater. But no, trail crossed Tai Po Road and then went via some steps and obscure byways to the railway (crossed) and Tolo Highway (crossed) before sneaking into the racecourse via some sort of hole in the fence. Trail cleverly avoided security guard placements before going into the multi-storey car park. It was here that Golden Balls, lagging far behind even Mango who was shuffling along with flu of the battycrease, decided to make his own way back and ascended to the top floor of the car park trying to find his way onto one of the pedestrian flyovers that cross over from the railway line, bringing punters in their tens of thousands every Saturday to this temple of horsey speculation. Alas the place was configured to prevent such roguish acts, and after a couple of brushes with security he found himself descending the steps to the racetrack, where thousands of people huddled in the stands watching live telecasts of the racing from Happy Valley. GB found himself running right along the side of the track as a phalanx of ripplingly muscled beasts bore down on him snorting gouts of steam. “Horse!” he called weakly.

Eventually managing to cross Tolo Highway he found himself in some sort of Kafkaesque labyrinth of passageways, staircases and corridors all seeminly engineered to steer him in the opposite direction to the one he was trying to go in. How he wished he’d stayed on trail!

Meanwhile the pack was confronting its own harrowing Golgotha as trail led further into the gritty urban centre of Sha Tin. “Where’s the shiggy?” was the plaintive cry as yet more arcades of brightly lit concrete exerted their macabre effect on the anguished hashers, by now shambling along, their eyes red-rimmed with trauma, their postures an anguished parody of purgatory. At last their wretchedness came to an end as they entered a village and then started up a long flight of steps past village houses and trees, where even the pack of snarling hounds that tried to prevent their passage seemed like a blessing. Eunuch bounded Bambi-like to the top of the stops, passing GB, who had finally worked his way to the same village below, and lo! there was the on-home.

Back at the park somebody did a circle, we shouted raucously, locals came to stare and smile strangely, and the rozzers made their obligatory appearance – for this is the wealthiest enclave of the New Territories and is protected by the state from rampaging zombies and hashers.

Bonus question: Which hasher rode 54 winners in his prime as a jockey?

Answer: Zimmerframe

Date: Wednesday, 26 February, 2014

Time: 7.30pm

Start: Sitting-out area at the end of Ma Ling Path

Hare: Stingray

Car: Up Kau To Shan Road from Tai Po Road; turn right at the roundabout. Park at the meters at the end of the road.

Bus: Green minibus 66K from Sha Tin station

Chilly Chili

By Mango Groove

It was yet another cold, coold night with the thermometer reading something like 6 degrees but with the wind blowing it felt a lot colder. In fact it was so cold that Mango refused to come out of Stingray’s car to chat with Big Moany who was outside the car, instead preferring to talk to him using his mobile phone. Anyway once the four muskeeters – Stingray, One Eyed Jack, Dingaling and Mango – managed to get enough courage to remove their outer garments, the hare gave us instructions:”Medium length run…turn left..left..left!” So off we all ran completely missing the left turn and only with the help of little Kimberly, who now was an FRB, did we find trail through the gravel car park. Onto a two-way check where Stingray and One Eyed Jack went left, with trail found leading over the bridge. Dingaling held firmly onto Sam as we ran around the perimeter of Kam Sheung Road station onto an open check. Typically we either go right under the subway or sometimes left along the main road but somehow One Eyed Jack found trail straight through and into the fields behind. The pack really did put the willies up a poor lady who was out tending her crops as we ran past her and into the subway. After another check the trail started to get really soft and mushy and at one point the pack had to cross over some really foul smelling stuff…so bad that Stingray spent five minutes doing a detour just to avoid it. Coming back out onto the main road Dingaling found trail after a two-way check, but soon realized this was not “our” trail but looked suspiciously like Hong Kong Hash markings. Stingray denied this of course, claiming that they haven’t had their run in Kam Tin yet. We went back and found trail over the bridge and back along the main road for a nice run keeping our body heat up.  Following a couple of checks that took us rightwards, joining the trail that leads from Route 3 car park up into Tai Lam Country Park. At this point One Eyed Jack and Stingray decided they were going to run the flat route around the hill, whereas Dingaling and Mango went upwards. At the crest of the hill a check back was found and a quick back track took us down and onto Big Moany’s favourite steps. A short run back towards the MTR and home, with everyone back in about an hour. At the bucket, Kimberly was busy blowing bubbles with her bubble-maker, which made Stingray very happy…cos now there are two West Ham United supporters in Hong Kong. Everyone got changed in double quick time while Big Moany disappeared inside, only to return with a bowl of Harpoon’s hot chilli, rice and bread. Big Moany, as GM2, did the circle and after another beer or two we all pissed off…once again another excellent evening with the N2TH3.

Date: Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Time: 7.30pm

Start: Noble Park, Kam Tin (just off Kam Sheung Road)

Park: roadside or villagers’ gravel car park (at own risk)

Train: Kam Sheung Road station 5 minutes’ walk

Hare says: Didn’t know it was me this week. Will try to recce something but if not it”ll be a short, boring run from my house.

 

A new chapter in the anals of incompetence was written on Wednesday night when five runners managed to go to three separate starting points for the hash.

When hare Tangerine Dream stated that the run would be “from park near my office. same  as last time I set it,” it all seemed so simple. When this was followed up by a terse “Kwong Fuk park OK?” and a quick check on the Archives showed that her last run near her office was in April 2013, Run 1578, near the Gili Gulu and just outside Kwong Fuk Bridge Park, the matter was confirmed. And thus the announcement went out. We were later to find out there was good reason for the hare’s uncharacteristically concise emails.

That evening Webbie Golden Balls, languishing at home sick, got a breezy call from the hare. “I’m waiting at the start,” says she, “but there’s nobody here.”

“They should be there by now. Near the Gili Gulu, same as last time, right?”

“Er, no. Tai Po football ground. Didn’t you get my Whatsapp?”

“But I don’t do Whatsapp…” Not quite true. Somehow I’ve got an account that I never use. Don’t tell anyone. Anyway, a quick call to Mango Groove, waiting at the “start” and wondering where the hare was, soon put things right. “I can hear Tangerine Dream on the phone to Eunuch now, so we’ll get ourselves down there,” he says. “I’ll call Stingray and let him know.”

Stingray. One of Tai Po Football Club’s 17 fans. A man who actually – brace yourselves – goes to watch Tai Po play. Stands on the terraces with a scarf and a rattle, bellowing like some Estuary wide boy…oh, wait a minute…well, Stingray, hare on February 26, had sent out a feeler to set his run that day at Tai Po football ground because Tai Po are playing at home that night and he thought we could all go and have the circle on the terraces, doubling the noise level. We don’t know if Tangerine Dream took this as a suggestion for her run and decided in her obliging manner to accommodate him (that doesn’t sound right), but whatever it was she was waiting there with her arm in a sling at the training pitch in Kwong Fuk Park. Meanwhile Stingray went to the other pitch near the railway station. Mango and Eunuch joined Tangerine Dream at the training pitch while Dingaling and One Eyed Jack turned up just after this at Kwong Fuk Bridge Park, the original start, for a possible world record farcical fack-up of 1.67 runners per start location. This is great value folks and has gone down in the anals of ineptitude. Meanwhile Golden Balls had wisely gone to bed.

After half an hour Stingray found the right football pitch and he, Mango and Eunuch set off. When it became clear that the run was going up the Wilson Trail at Lin Au, Stingray said, “You can stick your Wilson Trail up your arse, I’m going back to watch Tai Po,” for indeed his team were playing Hong Kong Football Club at home that night. Meanwhile, One Eyed Jack and Dingaling found trail near Gili Gulu and set out hoping it would eventually lead to the buckets. Dingaling found his way there but One Eyed Jack, citing jet lag and cold (it was 6 degrees C), buggered off home.

Assuming from the sight of Tangerine Dream’s broken arm (rugby injury from the weekend) that it would be a short, concrete jaunt around the houses, Eunuch and Mango Groove were surprised to see the trail go into the rough on the Wilson, and when Mango got back after 70 minutes he said, “Tangerine Dream, you really didn’t have to set the run with a broken arm, you could have cheated and just gone down the pub and told us to do our own run from there. We’d have understood,” to which she replied – listen to this everybody – “Got to do my fair share, haven’t I.”

Amen. And in other news, Tai Po drew with Football Club in a goalless but exciting match (from our football correspondent).

Time: 7.30pm

Start: Kwong Fuk Bridge Garden, Tai Po Market near Gili Gulu (see map)

Hare: Tangerine Dream

Hare says: Run will be from park near my office. Same as last time I set it. Cant remember park name. will check. Kung Hei Fat Boy!

Eye On The Prize

By Golden Balls

Cresting the highest point of Sha Lo Tung Road before it descends to the village, a Subaru station wagon blocked the dark road ahead. “He’s setting it in a car,” I thought. Justice was to be merciless. But it turned out it wasn’t the hare Eunuch dithering uncertainly in front of me but Gail Says No (we have to do something about that name) appearing for just his second Northern run. Eunuch was in fact waiting at the start, along with Mango Groove, Stingray and Dingaling – the usual suspects.

Muttering something about setting the start of the run, Eunuch set off not into the Sha Lo Tung hinterland as was expected, but back along the road, and as we set off we were fooled by the two checks encountered, making lengthy forays into the side trails. Eventually, just before the steps going down to Fung Yuen, Stingray found a tiny goat track almost hidden by shiggy going off to the west in the general direction of Cloudy Hill. At first this was like a steep obstacle course with branches, rocks and an unstable surface. Regular readers of this site will know I have a chocolate leg, meaning I can’t put much weight on it, but its slowly evolving into marzipan – so I got up the initial climb well in the rear.

But now we were on a lovely plateau-like feature with knee-high scrub. The tenuous trail was well marked and the torches ahead were going unmistakably for Cloudy Hill. The buildings on top looked very close. We’ll be up there in no time, I thought. After a few minutes there was a bit of a drop down to a sort of watershed and then trail went out the other side and started climbing again. Funny, those buildings don’t look any closer. By now all torches were invisible, hinting at denser shiggy to come, although I saw what I thought to be a hasher on a ridge over to the right and spent a long time trying to drift that way in the uncertain terrain. But This way, this way, the toilet paper whispered, and I kept pushing up. Turned out the phantom light was Eunuch going down, having swept the trail from the front…

A long, dense bamboo tunnel ensued, and when that petered out (how come those buildings don’t look any closer?), an ever steepening forest ascent that required hands pulling up on vegetation and tree trunks. False summit after false summit – is this ever going to end? Cloud came down and the wind was cold in places as the vegetation thinned. Finally there was the unmistakable sense of something coming to an end and I broke out onto the windy ridge about 100m from the buildings, their lights fuzzing orangely through the mist.

Disorientated, I missed the turn-off for Sha Lo Tung and started heading down the road but soon corrected that and started jogging down the mountain marathon steps, when I met a lost hasher coming up. Salesman had started up the other ridge but somehow worked his way over to the home trail and claimed he was going to do it all backwards. He changed his mind when I told him about the trail up and we jogged back together for another splendid Northern circle of wit, beer and conversation. Great trail.

Date: Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Time: 7.30pm

Hare: Eunuch

Start: Classic hashing terrain – end of Sha Lo Tung Road, which is off Ting Kok Road immediately after the turning for Fung Yuen (approaching from Tai Po).

Getting there: No public transport – best option is to take a taxi from Tai Wo station. At least one hasher will be at the taxi rank just along from McDonalds at 7pm.

Receding Hareline

Feb 12 – Tangerine Dream

Feb 19 – Big Moany

Feb 26 – Stingray

Mar 5 – Salesman