Me and Rach had roped Mariam, Martin and Nirvick to join Mark's famous annual jungle hike. Said to be one of the rather diverse and exciting hike, they were all pretty excited. That is until Mark backed out of the hike at approximately 1130pm the night before and left it up to me and Rach to lead the pack.
A change of plans.
We then decided 2 minutes into the change of plans that we were going to get Martin to lead us to the 8 Immortals hike (because yes, we hate taking the lead). He was rather confused at first as he received texts from both of us with an abrupt change in direction, but being the good sport he is, he agreed.
We conveniently forgot to mention it to the rest.
On the train ride into New territories, we were all on talking about the 8 Immortals, some other people seemed a little confused which then lead me to realize that no one knew exactly where we were going!
Wilson trail 9 (aka the 8 Immortals) was labelled as challenging. I could feel Mariam's deadly look set upon me when realization dawned on her about our direction of hike (this reminds me of Allyanna and her "I am going to kill you" declarations after I convinced her to join us on an "interesting" hike - ie Hard hike; yes, after years of relaying bad news at work, I have perfected the talent of sugar-coating every worse case scenarios possible.)
We started at the Hok Tau reservoirs, and this doesn't feel like you are in Hong Kong at all. It was beautiful, there were butterflies of all sizes and colours inhabiting the area.
The crazy ascent begins soon after. It took about a good hour of strenuous upward climb with no shade cover whatsoever. As the first shade of summer had arrived, we were drenched with sweat by the time we arrived at the top of the ridge.
Breathtaking. The hard trails always are. All the pain forgotten. All we could see were Hong Kong's most dramatically beautiful range of hills. We were at the edge of the escarpment of Ping Fung Shan.
It took a mighty long time before we got to the actual Eight Immortals Range made up of 8 succession of humps, each peaks named after a character of Chinese Mythology. We were stunned, as we had been walking (climbing, crawling, trudging, huffing & puffing) a good 4 hours and thought that we were already on it the whole time! Martin, who of course knew the entire trail by heart was probably leaving the best news for last...of course, there was no turning back by that time anyway as we were deep on the range.
From the last of the immortals Sin Ku Fung, it was another hour of steep slippery descent to Tai Mei Tuk. We literally ran to the restaurant for food. The entire trail took 5 hours of a 10km hike. I slept 10 hours straight after that.
This is to date one of the most beautiful hike I have been on.
When I thought Hong Kong could surprise me no more, I am entranced.
A change of plans.
We then decided 2 minutes into the change of plans that we were going to get Martin to lead us to the 8 Immortals hike (because yes, we hate taking the lead). He was rather confused at first as he received texts from both of us with an abrupt change in direction, but being the good sport he is, he agreed.
We conveniently forgot to mention it to the rest.
On the train ride into New territories, we were all on talking about the 8 Immortals, some other people seemed a little confused which then lead me to realize that no one knew exactly where we were going!
Wilson trail 9 (aka the 8 Immortals) was labelled as challenging. I could feel Mariam's deadly look set upon me when realization dawned on her about our direction of hike (this reminds me of Allyanna and her "I am going to kill you" declarations after I convinced her to join us on an "interesting" hike - ie Hard hike; yes, after years of relaying bad news at work, I have perfected the talent of sugar-coating every worse case scenarios possible.)
We started at the Hok Tau reservoirs, and this doesn't feel like you are in Hong Kong at all. It was beautiful, there were butterflies of all sizes and colours inhabiting the area.
Breathtaking. The hard trails always are. All the pain forgotten. All we could see were Hong Kong's most dramatically beautiful range of hills. We were at the edge of the escarpment of Ping Fung Shan.
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| Kinga taking the lead |
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| My favourite rumpled green blanket of hills |
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| View of Tolo Harbour and Plover cove |
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| Marching through the 8 immortals |
From the last of the immortals Sin Ku Fung, it was another hour of steep slippery descent to Tai Mei Tuk. We literally ran to the restaurant for food. The entire trail took 5 hours of a 10km hike. I slept 10 hours straight after that.
This is to date one of the most beautiful hike I have been on.
When I thought Hong Kong could surprise me no more, I am entranced.
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