Taking a hike

Physical exercise. Good Lord.

The entire ELT department was forced to go to a country club in Tuen Mun on Friday, March 28th, for a day-long teambuilding extravaganza (Design got a trip to Macao by helicopter!) -- this was less awful than I expected, in fact. But it was still moderately awful.

In the evening, I mooched around and had dinner, then met up with my Irish mate R at the Old China Hand in Wanchai, which was full of yahoos in town for the Sevens (both the OCH and Wanchai, that is). I miraculously acquired a table, which we later gracefully ceded a portion of to a lady from the Scottish borders so that she'd have elbow room to eat her pub food. At one point while R was in the toilet, she told me my Irish accent was less pronounced than his. Tempted as I was to go for some form of pretence, I instead simply explained why that was.

The plan for hiking continued--I stayed over at R's flat in North Point, and in the morning we had breakfast (noodles with spam and egg, mmmmmm) then walked to Quarry Bay, briefly stopping off so I could show R the location of the "secret bookshop" in a book distribution office at Taikoo Shing.

We had selected two easy, Level 1, stages of the Hong Kong Trail -- Stages 6 & 7 -- from the Serious Hiker's Guide to Hong Kong or something to that effect. What we didn't realise was that to get to the beginning of Stage 6 of said trail from Quarry Bay, one must climb a reasonably steep incline, Mount Parker Road, for about 45 minutes. (At left, a very rough delineation of our route. Click for enlargening.)

We also forgot to bring water, an elementary mistake, foolishly assuming that here, like on the mainland, there would be at least some small refreshment stalls if not constantly badgering vendors of water and knick-knacks. We were wrong. There would not in fact be anywhere to buy water for another 14 kilometres.

There wasn't too much climbing after that, and we walked down the other side of Hong Kong Island's central ridge of hills along the edge of Tai Tam Reservoir and along to Tai Tam Bay itself. Most of the route is concreted, but the nicest parts were those on a twisting bare-earth path, where one has to be more careful of tripping on roots and rocks but is surrounded more convincingly by countryside. The contrast with urban Hong Kong is startling, and it's often hard to believe you're on the same island. Particularly so for R, who lives in one of the busiest parts of the city.

About three hours and a bit later, we arrived at a small village, passing what's said to be the only remaining agricultural land on HK Island en route. There we drank a can of Pocari and two bottles of water each and watched middle class types fiddling with Hobie catamarans on the beach. A twenty-something Cantonese couple at the next table talked loudly and dimly on such topics as names ('I like the name Sophie so much I will call my baby that even if it's a boy') and celebrities ('Barbie and Ken split up? So is she single now or what?').
At a further along table, two English expats of the familiar gruff, bullet-headed type discussed money and enterprise in a thoroughly cliched way, then surprised us by striking up conversation with the proprietor in fluent Cantonese as they settled the bill.

We left and managed to get lost in a village consisting of half a dozen buildings. It was a location for unexpected linguistic ability, and an old Chinese woman addressed us in perfect English, correctly surmising that we were looking for the way to the bus stop. 'Up the steps,' she told us and pointed the way.

Ah. The steps. 750 steps, in fact, winding up the mountain side. The trail itself may be easy, but getting to and from it certainly isn't. I can say with certainty that this was the hardest part of the hike. Mercifully, a minibus to Shau Kei Wan MTR station pulled up just as we reached the top of the steps, and before you could wheeze 'thank God for that' we were back in the crowds and hubbub of the north side of the Island, which was quite the culture shock.

I didn't get too sunburnt, which is nice. But if you're going to take the same walk, bring water, seriously.