first HK hike
The first slightly cooler day coincided with a day off from Pilot-study life so we headed for the hills to see what Hong Kong hiking is like. An easy five-minute bus ride from our AirBnB in Discovery Bay and we were at the start of the trail, staring up at Tiger’s Head rock. After a kind of gruelling climb (exacerbated for those of us that played beach volleyball the day before), we gained some metres and a view, even though it was a bit cloudy it was lovely to be up in the hills, enjoying the views.
The trail was reasonably quiet, we passed people now and then but felt mostly like we had it to ourselves. They like paving their hikes here so we had sections where we were essentially walking on a footpath which was extremely strange, but there was also some good clamber over rock type bits as well. Having reached Tiger’s Head we then transitioned on to Lo Fu Tau Country Trail and headed for the next bay over which is Mui Wo. On the way, we got some sweet views on both sides of Lantau Island, down to the airport, across to the Gold Coast and back to Discovery Bay. We were on the lookout for snakes, hoping not to step on one but to maybe see one in the distance, no such luck, a couple of cool butterflies though.
We eventually found ourselves near a pristine looking Golf Course and couldn’t resist a Google, having heard outrageous things about the price of golf here. They weren’t wrong. It is around $800k (NZ) for a membership, but you can’t actually just go and buy one. They have it capped at 1,100 memberships, so you have to get it from an existing member and pay a casual $50k transfer fee. So then once you are a member you can pay for the bargain price of $300 a round, or bring a visitor who pays $1,000. Holy moly.
As we started the climb down to Mui Wo the track turned completely to a footpath and we found at random intervals these leather brushes in buckets, designed for “fire-beating”! We ended up on the Olympic Path which every now and then has the symbol of an Olympic sport in some sort of weird homage to past Olympians. We also saw a waterfall, some interesting rather ancient and ramshackle looking houses, some temples and then eventually the town of Mui Wo. It took us a good few hours to do the whole thing but that was with slow tired volleyball legs here both dragging the pace and stopping to take photos all the time. The nice thing about this hike is being able to then jump on a ferry back to Discovery Bay. We were stoked with our first foray into the hills, the fact that you can so quickly be away from everything and in uncrowded nature is really nice. When the weather calms down a bit (and our hiking boots arrive from NZ), it will be so sweet to be able to get out and try some more of the many hikes available.
