Pak Sha Wan to Lion's Marina

Hares: Indyanus, Lost at Sea

It's Australian to do such things because, however uncivilised they may seem, it's human to do them.
---Hugh Mackay, predicting Wednesday's trail

The bigger the hat, the smaller the property.
---An Australian proverb, predicting Gobi Lo Ho's Wednesday attire

At the conventional 6:45PM, the pack began to slowly gather at the Pak Sha Wan car park off of Hiram's Highway, where Lost at Sea began to welcome in the eager runners with water and promises of a fine trail. "The markings will be great," he said. "Indy did a fine job setting them yesterday," he said. "I set them again earlier today," he said.

Never trust a hasher.

7:00PM rolled around, and a few stragglers started to roll in. After a relatively confusing recce with Bobbledick, the scribe arrived at around 7:10PM, when the pack was beginning to get cold with the chilly Sai Kung breeze on them, and Indyanus was nowhere to be seen. "She'll show up in just a minute and we'll be running in no time!" said Lost at Sea.

Never trust a hasher.

Finally, at around 7:20PM, after all of the pack had arrived and had successfully had their muscles frozen near solid, Indyanus casually strolled off a minibus, and Lost at Sea offered the pack water, in case anyone had built up a sweat standing in 10 degrees. After a quick chalk talk, where we were told that there were several different markings for checks and checkbacks (including a CH check, presumably indicating we were in Switzerland. Sadly, Willy Wanker was not with us tonight), the pack was sent directly up a hill, as is hash tradition. On the top of the hill was a T, despite there being no checks. A quick saunter of ~200 meters down the hill and into an alley lead us to true trail and we headed out.

This was the shortest checkback of the night.

The rest of the trail on the Pak Sha Wan side consisted of a savage run directly up and down the mountains of Pak Kong, slapping our feet on concrete the entire time. While most of the hashers muttered curse words up and down their breath as they slowly slugged up the hills, Gobi Lo Ho cheerfully ran up all but a few hills, and the as-of-yet unnamed Brien actually went so far as to skip gleefully up the inclines a couple times in the presence of the hash scribe. A couple more checkbacks into the run, and Castrato boldly led pack by a few hundred meters to the top of Pak Kong road, past the cemetery, and directly into another damn checkback. After confused searching around the tombs (the corpses were tragically unresponsive to "Are You?"), the true trail down the mountain was found no less than 400 meters from the CB. This was around when F3M, sitting near the bottom of the hill the whole time, said "Checkbacks like this are fantastic!"

It was about when we hit Hiram's Highway again when the trail got confusing.

Now, as much as the scribe would love to tell you about the trail through Lion's Park, he is regretfully unable to, as no one (except perhaps Hopeless and the hares) knows exactly what happened. Eventually, Ninja Winja, Macao Drunk, Gobi Lo Ho, Kuntshy, and a few other front runners found a portion of the Rambo trail, and continued on it until finding one of the two actual checks, which was eventually solved by a marking 250 meters down a concrete flight of stairs.

Fortunately, after about an hour worth of running (as the hares said... occasionally trust a hasher?), the trail ended with a spectacular finish down the docks to Lost at Sea's boat, where beer and softies were waiting. With no DOTs, and after a few showers (some at the more prestigious Terrace club, compared to the delightful On On showers), all of the hashers proceeded to a curry On On, and enjoyed a rather long but fairly enjoyable circle run by the quartet of Kuntshy, Ninja Winja, Hopeless, and Indyanus.

The Down Downs
(Scribe's note: I believed I missed a couple in this summary, due to poor note-taking/misplaced DD notes from Indy/Ninja Winja's handwriting)

Kuntshy Circle The Hares - For an enjoyable run.
The Hares - ...filled with numerous questionable checkbacks.
F3M, Gunpowder Plod - "Checkbacks are great!", especially when you don't run them
Hopeless, Indyanus - For shoving the circle duties off to the newbies Ninja Winja and KS
Newcomers - KS drank for mistakenly calling First Class Cockpit a newcomer, but StickyST drank a lookalike anyway
Malcolm - On his fourth run, going silent after being told he was being in danger of being named
Macao Drunk - For proving that being silent doesn't dodge a name
F3M - For setting a fashion statement, wearing cargo pants with high heels (As per TS: "She looks like J Lo")
GLH - For setting a fashion statement, wearing a dashing down jacket with an "Australian" hat
Plod and Inflateadate - For remarking on GLH's Queensland hat, "Only two things come from Queensland..."
Plod - For being disappointed when SST had him save two seats next to him, but just for others.
Toilet Spray & Octopussy - For not being up to Plod's rigorous standards.
Castrato - For lost property: grabbing the hash cash but forgetting his bags
Freewheel - "Are you setting a run? No? Have a drink."
NW - For whinging during the trail about his 100k time

Ninja Winja Circle
KS - For doing the 100k
The Hares - "What time does the LSW start again?"
The Hares - "What arrows does the LSW use?"
Indy - For being beat by Bobbledick to the run
Bobbledick - "
Hopeless - Took him <10 minutes to Dummy Spit about the run
Hopeless - For double guessing a checkback and not heading up the trail
Kuntshy - For complaining about the spelling of his name (note: I'll keep writing awful notes until it's spelled right)
Come In My Tunnel - For being up in front with the FRBs
NW x2 - It's CimT, not "Thorsten"
Returnees - CimT, Yummy Mummy
Hopeless - Mistaking NW for Bobbledick
Bobbledick - For asking KS, while writing notes, if he's going to finish his (unstarted) food
" - But just the rice, not the veggie curry
" - Have another free beer then
Inflateadate - 50 run anniversary
Someone whose name I can't read - For going on and on about how the run outdid the Cricket Club
The hares - "
HP Salsa - For, um, something (this was left blank)

Hopeless Circle
SST - For nearly running over Hopeless before the run (try harder next time)
Freewheel - For coming to the start in a Taxi... from Sai Kung, not his home.
Plod - Well, the run'll be better than N2TH3.
SST, Macao Drunk, Malcolm - For showering in the Marina Club
KS - For marking "KS woz her", but not actually calling the CB
1st Class Cockpit - For causing the disorder going into Lion's Park (Inflato drank for her)
Octopussy and Indy - All Aussies drink!
Plod - got me a *unintelligible writing* - empire has ended. (I have no idea what this is)
Lost at Sea - "Take the elevation" at beginning of the run. Pilot speak: ALL PILOTS DRINK! (Inflato)

Indy Circle
No notes here, so all I can remember are:
Lost at Sea - Some nepotistic BS
Group Drink - For such a large turnout in Sai Kung
A couples of bottle of wine to the best Aussie lookalike

Kuntshy Circle
Inflato - For wearing an old person hat, like Bobbledick and Ninja Winja
Ninja Winja - For actually being old, after complaining of such on the 100k
Bobbledick - For setting a Four Peaks recce right before the run
Brien (Mr. Happy Slippers as a lookalike) - For skipping the recce

The song was sung by the four DD givers, and some intrepid few dodged the taxis back to Pak Sha Wan by having a few drinks onboard Lost at Sea's wonderful yacht.

A special note from the scribe to Ninja Winja: Oh, I desperately wanted to include that one DD you didn't give.

First map shows the Rambos route, where some creative calling and marking took the first part of the pack the wrong way towards Sai Kung just after 4km.
2nd map shows Plod's shortcut through Lions Park and the run in to the finish for the wimps in blue.