Barking Mad

By Cock of the South, Mango Groove and Stingray

Last summer, when outgoing Shek Kong Hash GM Salesman set his sayonara run from Bekk’s in the grim yardie-lands of Kam Tin, only Stunt Double finished it. Salesman claimed near-impenetrable overgrowth had foiled his attempts to reopen an old trail, long gone to shiggy. Undaunted, Dingaling went out with Overdue and a petrol-driven chainsaw to put things to right, and after clearing dense woody thorn triffids, announced he had a great run. And so he did, starting this time much closer to the action at the Shek Kong catchment.

Velcro Lips was first on the scene, at 7 o’clock, but had the willies put up her, after which she promptly went home, having had her fun and frolics. But as 7.30 approached the hashers started arriving until more than a dozen thronged the pit, some only there for the promised curry.

Trail went out along the catchwater road towards Ho Pui. Two runs were set. Five runs were done. Dram and Fartypants did a short out-and-back walk to the point at which trail disappeared into the shiggy. Big Moany and Golden Balls did the fine wimps trail, while latecomer One Eyed Jack somehow managed a super-rambos. It was on the rambos, however, that controversy flared. Let the protagonists speak.

Mango Groove: The hare said something about walkers, wimps and rambos, to which Mango and Eunuch paid full attention to but Stingray didn’t and had written on his palm, “Note to self. I am gonna shortcut today and try and take Walkie Talkie with me and then pretend I did the full trail.” Anyway we took off straight along the catchment to the first check that went straight then a second and onto a check back that had us looking a bit with Eunuch finding trail up into the shiggy climb off the catchment. At this point poor Dylan had to be told he was going home by Fartypantz due to the presence of wild boar scent (I thought it was my aftershave). Anyway we continued to climb upwards, eventually coming onto a rambo/wimps split with wimps heading upwards and rambos clambering around towards the right. The rambo trail was pretty interesting with lots of fallen trees and jagged edges to negotiate, probably the result of last year’s typhoons. It was later revealed that One Eyed Jack fell off to the side of the trail, managing to pull himself up by holding onto a fallen log. FRB Eunuch managed to solve a couple of checks before we started heading steeply down some lovely soft trail with fixed ropes. Now it looked at this point that we were simply going to continue down the valley and eventually back onto the catchment but the hare had something better in store for us. The third check on the trail down actually took us right and onto a disguised path, that had to be negotiated carefully.

Stingray: On reaching the Rambo/wimps split half a millisecond passed as Walkie Talkie and I considered the options. Wimps being for lesser mortals, not pure quality athletes like us, we threw ourselves onto the rambo trail. Such was our speed and agility through the jungle, suddenly there was no trail. Backtracking just a short distance there was the trail – a mistake, unusually a mistake had been made going left instead of on the trail to the right. So on on we pushed under trees, over snakes, up ladders, barking at the deer, through swamps and around landmines. The trail was well laid, easy to follow, nothing could go wrong. But then lights ahead. Those crazy degenerates Mango and Eunuch coming straight at us, shouting and screaming like only Merseyside supporters can. “You goin the wong way,” Mango mumbled. “Bollocks,” said I. Walkie hurled expletives at them like she was throwing confetti.

Mango: As Eunuch and Mango were running in the correct direction two lights were coming towards them – Stingray and Walkie Talkie. After a group hug and exchange of kisses Eunuch asked Stingray what he was doing on the wimps trail to which he replied he was not and that he was on the rambo and everyone else was wrong.  Mango took great offence at this accusation and then pointed out that both he and Eunuch had been following markings and the arrows on the trees were pointing them in the correct direction.  Stingray was having none of this and replied, “Seriously, come with us, we’re on the rambos.” It must be mentioned that Walkie Talkie remained very quiet in this heated exchange of words, probably because she knew Stingray was wrong but didn’t want to upset him. Anyway the four jolly hashers crossed paths with the correct trail leading us back and onto the semi steps down and back onto the catchment. Arriving back at the bucket there was no sign of Stingray and Walkie Talkie; about 20 minutes later they trundled in with Stingray still insisting he was on the correct trail all along.

Stingray: Mango and Eunuch passed, holding hands and singing nursery rhymes. “Just let them go,” I said, ‘there’s nothing anyone can do to save them now.” We pushed on, a simple check, down to the catchment path, turn right, on on. But then, having discussed the merits of Russian involvement in the Crimea, whether a slave should get an Oscar and if the Babes Hash could be regarded as a functional constituency, it became apparent that there was now a lack of trail to follow. “Obviously the trail went across the catchment, past the pagoda and down towards Shek Kong,” WT explained, and all, again, was right with the world. After all, the hare had said that if there was no trail just follow the trees and Bob’s your uncle, you’ll be home in a jiffy. There was hundreds of trees. As for Mangonuch, clearly they had not interpreted the Dingaling shredded paper in a professional manner, like wot we ‘ad. WT reflected on the matter, ‘We don’t have this incontinence on the Babes hash either”.

Accusations and counter accusations gilded with surrealism – or is it nonsense? All that remains to be said is that Bi Moany ran the brief circle that everybody wanted to end so they could get stuck in to Overdue’s excellent curry, rice, papadoms and baked potatoes. With butter. And the deer barked in the distance.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

7.30pm

Shek Kong catchwater barbecue pits

Hare: Dingaling

Drive: From Route Twisk turn on to the catchwater road just above the PLA building with all the flags flying that used to be the Naafi. Drive in about 800m – there’s a few sets of barbecue pits so look out for the one that looks a bit hashy. Park at roadside.

Public transport: Bus 51 between Kam Sheung Road and Tsuen Wan West railway stations runs over Route Twisk. Bus 64K passes the bottom of Route Twisk – get off at the Shek Kong roundabout and it’s about a 1.3km walk from there.

The run: Dingaling presents his Shek Kong Hash AGM run from last year, the one where only Stunt Double managed to do the rambo trail – so it’s virgin trail!