APOC 2006
Night-O folly in Hong Kong
Michael Hubbert
Mass start 8pm – we line up along the gutter of a steeply ascending street. The chinese starter screams something into the megaphone – it must have been “GO” because some people move off up the road. Others unroll their maps and stand aghast. The map is dark green! Where is the Start triangle? Where are the control circles? This map is practically unreadable at night!!
W
E are competing in the 2006 Hong Kong Night Orienteering Championships on Braemar Hill, above the frenetic bustle and light show that is Hong Kong island. It’s a Score event and is one of the lead-up events in the APOC 2006 carnival. The map is green and almost illegible (see opposite). Are those really tracks through the green? Still haven’t found the Start triangle. It must be somewhere. Ah – there’s the Finish circle. That’s at least a start. Down a flight of concrete steps and up, up, up many more. Still haven’t spotted that Start triangle. Stop to have a real look. Ah – there it is. Now, which way to head? Go for #33 along a path which is partly paved and partly eroded gravel. The going here isn’t too bad at all. Roughly plan out a circuit. Not many options. Decide to go for #1, then #25. The map shows a short, steep track up to #1. But I soon find it’s actually a steep and heavily eroded watercourse with thick impenetrable scrub closing in on either side and overhead in places. It’s a great place to break an ankle, especially at night. It soon turns out that most of the small tracks shown on the map are merely places where water chose to cascade down the hill last time it rained. The map is mostly green, and green means green!! Thick scrub above head height – impenetrable in the day and even more so at night. For contrast, “rough open” means thick scrub below head height – just as impenetrable at night.
Another supposed goat track leads steeply down, across, then upward at 45 degrees again. Steady on – this is Hong Kong, there’s no goats here. Just orienteers idiot enough to tackle this at night. #25 appears briefly through the thick scrub. Getting through to punch it is a major exercise. Now where? Down and down an exceedingly narrow and twisting watercourse which has a nasty habit of disappearing into clumps of scrub where no human can venture. The map shows it as runnable – dream on! I’m being followed by a Hong Kong orienteer who has even less idea of how to follow this “track” at night than I have. Together we blunder on.
At last, a paved pathway looms below. It’s a near-vertical drop to reach it, but any decentlooking pathway is heaven compared with the rubbish we’ve been trying to follow. #24 should be easy from here. Alas, it’s hidden at the end of a sandy patch behind some thick scrub. A little more time lost. And time is getting on. #14 and #16 are close by but appear to be up more steep and eroded watercourses masquerading as tracks. Do I dare try for them? Decide not. Got to think about how I get out of here and back to the Finish. If both my headlamps go out I’ll be history. The track marked in the direction of #21 is no track at all but a rocky creek bed. At least it’s wide enough to get along quite quickly. The trick will be to find the little goat track above the bare rock. Whatever made this one was very short because the scrub is really closed in and I have to bend low to get through. Maybe there really are goats here. Or pygmy sheep. From #21 it’s simply a case of what’s the quickest way back. #29 is simple and then the track leads up over a rocky hilltop. Halfway up I hear cursing and swearing in distinctive Russian above me and to the left. They seem to have gotten off the track. A few moments later I find out why. There is no track amongst this rock. The track shown on the map is wishful thinking. On the way down to #31 I’m passed by some of the English contingent. “Oh dear, Oh dear” they say. I couldn’t agree more. Down to a paved path and a decent run (jog) at last, picking up #9, #26 and #32 on the way to the finish. It’s a reasonable score but I’m far too late. Back at the assembly arena I learn that Dick and Maureen Ogilvie met on the way and decided there and then to bail out “before they killed themselves”. A wise decision. I was almost going to do the same. A quiet word in the ear of the Event Controller about the dangerous nature of this particular terrain for Night-O seems to have about the same effect as watering a duck. For me, they’ve put Night-O in Hong Kong back about 20 years with just this one event. As it turned out, they have other maps which would be much more suitable for Night-O. Pity they didn’t use one of them.
Up, up and up this alleged track we clamber. People can’t pass – the scrub on either side won’t let them. Finally the top. And there’s the flag, sitting in the only piece of open ground we’d seen since leaving the start. MARCH 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 13
