Another morning hike to finish off in Hong Kong, and one more place that was not particularly easy to get to. Today's route was section eight (the last) of the HK trail, a trail that starts from The Peak and heads east across most of Hong Kong island. To do all eight would probably take a couple of days, so I just picked the most interesting looking one, also knows as "Dragon's Back". The first part of the trip was by train, which was easy, then I had to jump on a bus along Shek O Road and get off at a random bus stop somewhere along the way, where the trail begins. Thankfully they had a display onboard the bus indicating which stop was coming up, and due to some research I knew when to get off. The start of the trail is pretty unnoticable, but it's almost right next to the bus stop, otherwise you would easily miss it.
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| BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS. |
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| The trail starts here. |
The first two kilometres of the hike is mostly uphill, making it slow progress. Alongside the path is bushes and shrubs instead of trees, so it is possible to look above them and see Stanley (maybe) to the west and Shek O (probably) to the east. A few downhill sections were very sketchy as there had been a bit of rain overnight and the path was a sort of muddy clay surface. My shoes didn't have a lot of grip so a few times I was extremely close to losing my footing, which would not have ended well. The trail gets it's name from the bumps along the hill you get to walk up and down, which sort of represents the back of a dragon I guess. After getting through this stage the trail flattened out, and became a dirt track surrounded by trees. The final few kilometres were then on a paved road until it simply ends at the back of some small houses at Big Wave Bay. There weren't any signs indicating how to get back to the bus stop, I just had to guess what looked like the main road out of town and came across a bus to get back to the train station.
The Garmin GPS watch recorded 7.3 kilometres in 1 hour and 26 minutes.
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| Walking along Dragon's Back. |
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| Stanley on one side. |
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| And Shek O on the other. |
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| Also Dragon's Back. |
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| More Dragon's Back. |
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| Not much fanfare at the end of the trail. |
On the train line back to Hong Kong I made a few stops along the way. First at Quarry Bay to get some lunch at City Plaza mall, besides that it was just another really confusing shopping centre with no directory. Next at North Point to try and find Provident Centre mall. It wasn't very close to the station, and the surrounding area was rather run down and poor looking, but I made it there and found the first actual Nike Factory OUTLET STORE! They even had shoe boxes on display to indicate what sizes they have in stock for each model, but of course nothing bigger than a 12 for any of them. No matter though, as I got a few bargains on some clothes. Next was Causeway Bay where there was people EVERYWHERE, an incredibly busy Saturday afternoon shopping district I think. The Times Square mall had like twelve levels of shopping on it's own, I just had a look at these huge Gundam exhibits they had out front - although I have no idea what a Gundam is...
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| A Nike outlet at last! |
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| Gundam at Times Square. |
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| Whatever the plural of Gundam is. |
Theres another park (Victoria Park) also at Causeway Bay but it turns out be more for recreational activities than anything, lots of soccer pitches and stuff. Instead of getting back on the train again I got on board one of those old style trams - a real tram this time - they look quite funny because they have two decks but are really skinny. I got the last seat on the upper deck, allowing me to see what was going on around. The trams seem to move about as fast as those in Melbourne, and don't appear to have any real priority over cars or pedestrians, but if you're NOT in a hurry to be anywhere they are a good way to get around. It also would have been a good thing to do earlier in the trip, as you have a good vantage point (and plenty of idle time) to spot interesting shops and restaurants along the way.
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| Victoria Park. |
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| Where's Waldo: Causeway Bay. |
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| Still on the tram. |
Since I had a couple of hours still to go in the afternoon I got off around Admiralty (weird name) and took another go at hiking up Old Peak Road. Since I'd already done it once I was over confident that I'd be able to do it so much easier this time, so I tried to complete it quicker, but pretty much failed. I took the optional route to the top which passes by the Lions Pavilion lookout just before the tower, still a lot of fog around but slightly better than the previous day. I quickly checked out the shops at the tower and found a rubber magnet! Since it was later in the day there was now a huge queue of people wanting to take the tram in both directions, so I went with the walking option. As I was walking down the path the rattling of the tram from beyond the dense trees in the distance sounded exactly like the smoke monster. The downhill path turned out to be much worse than the uphill as it puts so much stress on your legs, and knees in particular, trying to maintain a slow and controlled pace. By the bottom my bad knee was suffering from all kinds of pain and joint issues.
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| HK Park. |
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| A clearer day on Old Peak Road. |
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| Lions Pavilion lookout. |
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| Massive line to get down (did they rip off the Indy 500 logo?). |
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| Less popular line to get down. |
Summary
Good
- Lots of small laneways to explore
- Many hiking and running options in and out of the city
- Numerous exits and maps at the train stations were useful
- Public transport efficient, although very crowded
- Signs were usually in English
- Slightly cheaper than Singapore
- Walkways saved times waiting at intersections - when you could find them and work out where they went
- Weather was ok, once I arrived
Bad
- 7-Eleven has no slurpee machines
- Continually accumulated lots of small, useless currency
- No large shoe sizes available in stores
- Rubbish bins hard to find, recycling almost does not exist
- Shopping malls impossible to navigate
- Too many people sometimes, usually walking slowly and getting in the way
Missed Out (Planned)
Missed Out (Unplanned)
- Macau
- More exploring around Hong Kong and Kowloon
- More trail hiking
- Stanley
STEP-O-METER: 39466 steps
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