view of Shek O from dragon’s back trail

we came Hong Kong ostensibly to eat & hike, so I better put up something to show we did la..hahaha. 🙂

one thing the Hong Kong weather forecast was utterly unreliable. this day (11.5.2013) was supposed to be a mostly wet day & since we had a bit of showers on 10.5.2013 – the day we arrived – we were expecting maybe we had to do this on Sunday. anyhow we woke up to glorious sunshine, so no excuse! 🙂

we had the free continental breakfast of croissant, bread, fruit, coffee etc at Ovolo where we stayed and set off for our morning hike at Dragon’s Back @ Shek O Country Park, voted the Best Urban Hike in Asia (Times Magazine 22 Nov 2004 Asia Issue). Sam Shui Po MTR was a 10mins walk from our hotel. we took the Tseun Wan line to Admiralty and changed to Island line to Shau Kei Wan and took the A3 exit to the Bus Terminus. Here we were queueing up for the No9 bus to Shek O when a private bus tout got into the good books of our adventurous trip leader who thrives on unknowns, and we got shepherded to a private bus waiting nearby. fortunately we were the last passengers they were waiting & the bus took off rightaway. The price was kind of irrelevant (like HK$7 vs HK$7.90 on the public bus) but I guess it was another experience. why not? – except this bus truly “took off” and was like hurtling through the winding country roads at >70kmh! phew – fortunately this time it got us faster to where we wanted & not some place else..heng ah! (means lucky) 🙂

we started the hike at 9.11am from the point further down Shek O road (you could also start the hike mid-way at To Tei Wan).

the ground was a bit wet from the rain the night before. as we got onto higher grounds we captured the first views of Stanley.

we came to the first fork – the one facing outwards which we took was the dragon’s back trail (4.9km ending at Tai Long Wan).

and we got a great view of Shek O (top photo & above). 🙂 panning back we also had a better birds eye view of Stanley.

more views of Shek O! we took quite a few group photos here for memories. 🙂

looking back at the dragon’s back trail

& the view of the dragon’s back trail looking back. 🙂

view of Tai Long Wan

more walking, and Tai Long Wan unfolded just ahead! 🙂

Shek O peak 284m

and then we were at Shek O peak at 284m. 🙂

mid-way exit to Shek O road at To Tei Wan

we were not planning to go to Tai Long Wan as the return journey would take 5 hrs, so we made a mid-way exit to Shek O road at To Tei Wan Village and that was just a nice 2hrs 5.7km hike. 🙂

we had some time to kill, so we walked around the wet market at Shau Kei Wan. there were live seafood of all description – the rarer ones like conch 海螺, abalones, razor clams (we only see in restaurants in Singapore), mantis prawns, braised goose (we hardly could find in restaurants here).

as we were still in good time and having already made prior reservations, we decided to make our way back to Tsimshatsui & had a very pleasant dimsum lunch at 迎Joyous One.

we did not do the Peak Circle walk the day before because of the rain. so after lunch & a short walk around Tsimshatsui, our trip leader herded us to Central bus terminus where we took No15 to the Peak. I had taken the Peak Tram the last few times when I went to the Peak. The bus offered a very good alternative really -cheap & excellent views during the journey up. 🙂

small falls along Peak Circle route

we were surprised with this mini falls along Peak Circle Walk as usually there was no water flow but maybe the overnight rain brought enough water. 🙂

we were planning to do a casually 1hr walk on paved roads with round-island views of Hong Kong skyline (and would have if we had stuck to Lugard Road) . however we got distracted and decided to take Harlech Road & pursue the Pak Fu Lam park & reservoir route. that became another 2hr+ hike over terrain with quite steep slopes & another 5.3km. 🙂

another excuse for big eats! 🙂

c.h.e.f andy