This hike, especially the first attempt, is so plagued with troubles that we almost turned back just two kilometres into the hike! Here's why.
We decided to separate the trail into two parts and hike them separately. The first time we hiked the trail was on February 6th, and we decided to do Wilson Trail Sec.3. There was one problem: we didn't set out until 12 p.m. and sunset was at 5.30 p.m., being deep in the winter. Nonetheless, we arrived at Yau Tong and started our hike.
Just a few hundred metres into the hike, and half of our group is complaining about the tiring upward slope. It wasn't even a path; it was a road. But at least the other half of the group, including myself, was able to enjoy the scenery that stretches out to Victoria Harbour, and you can enjoy the view of the skyscrapers on either side of the harbour.
Slowly but steadily, we finally arrived at the top of the hill, where we leave the road. My younger sister was complaining about her being extremely hungry, and that we promised we would eat soon, but we still hadn't. The thing was, we passed by a few pavilions along the road that had numbers on them. At Pavillion no.2, we promised we would eat a no.3. But we would never meet Pavillion no.3, as it was further down the road and we had to leave the road to continue on our hike at this point. But nonetheless, we pushed on, working our way up Devil's Peak.
Again, we passed by some amazing views on our way up, and the landscape was beautiful, with views opening up on our left, and you could enjoy the views of the bustling city of Hong Kong, while in the quiet forest. Very soon, we arrived at the Gough Battery, a British-built battery set up to control pirates that brought unrest to the city in the 19th century. Here, we enjoyed the Grade II UNESCO historical site, as we explored the underground tunnel and the batteries set up before. It was really interesting, and if I had looked upon the history of this battery, I might would have enjoyed it even more! But just as I was enjoying myself, and my sister content with the picnic we had set up on the side, I bumped my head onto a low roof of the entrance to the site. Or maybe, banged would be a more suitable word. The pain was excruciating. Had I not mentioned that these roofs were made of solid rock? I literally ran into the roof, as I planned to sprint back to our picnic site. What a way to end the exploration! Luckily my head wasn't bleeding, and I learnt my lesson: never run, and watch your head.
After we are finished with our lunch, we headed back onto the trail. I was following the signposts pointing up to Devil's Peak. It worked out fine until this point, where instead of following the Wilson Trail, I followed the Devil's Peak signpost. What an awesome navigator! All in all, we added an additional 45 minutes to our hike, which also happened to be a route full of stairs. Well, at least the view was spectacular. The views opened up on both sides, and on this clear day, you could see far, with Tseng Kwan O on one side, and Victoria Harbour on the other. Not much views can beat this! As we reached the peak, we suddenly found ourselves in a maze, where we can turn left or right, with high walls surrounding the passageway. We later found out that it was a loop around the peak, and that this was actually a British-built observation point, used for well, observation! Again, it was interesting, especially as we worked around the mini 'maze' of passageways.
For me, this detour was not only not a waste of time, but a spectacular and interesting one! But for my sister, it was anything but that. To her, we just added 45 minutes to our itinerary and drained her energy level. Moreover, we might not even complete the hike in time, as we still have 6-7 kilometres ahead of us, and she had to be back by 6 p.m. for her saxophone class.
As we reached the spot where we had stood 45 minutes before, and 90 minutes before (before we went to see the first historical monument where I banged my head), we really had to decide whether to continue, or come back another day, as we were more than 90 minutes behind schedule. After much convincing, I managed to persuade our group to continue on, as we can exit later at Sau Mau Ping a few kilometres later if necessary.
Luckily, the walk is pretty pleasant, and is mostly sheltered and flat, so we quickened our pace. The views occasionally open up, but there was nothing to see, spare a large cemetery. As we neared the end of the Devil's Peak section, the trail abruptly became a steep staircase leading upward on our right and a makeshift path straight forward, we were about to climb the staircase, but fortunately, an old man said that the makeshift path is a shortcut, and the staircase is just an unnecessary detour up and down in a long U-shaped path. Our group opted for the shortcut, except me, who opted for the real trail, because why not? I follow the 'not one metre less' motto. In the end, my mother and younger sister arrived at the intersection where both paths meet a minute earlier. I would say that our speed (me and my father) was not too bad.
This was followed by more downhill stairs, and soon, we stand at O King Road, with the option to exit towards Sau Mau Ping or Tiu Keng Leng, or continuing on up Black Hill to complete the hike. My sister obviously voted to exit, my father did too, as he felt that we might not have enough time to complete the hike, and also, he took the responsibility of my sister. (Remember the Dragon's Back hike?) I of course opted to continue, because, well, I am the hiker in the family. My mother, surprisingly, also voted to continue (actually maybe not surprisingly. She hates to call a hike unsuccessful). After a long debate, we finally came to the decision of continuing on, as my father actually also wanted to complete the hike. So, on we went, with my sister grudgingly agreeing.
Back on the trail, heading north, the trail now really starts to get tough. The trail goes straight up Black Hill, and the trail is also now much more exposed, leaving us hot and sweaty as we slowly made our way up the hill. On the way up, we could savour views of Lam Tin, and further up, views of Tseng Kwan O and Junk Bay.
The stairs seem never-ending, when we finally saw a peak in front of us, with uninviting steep stairs leading up to it. As we started up the stairs to the peak, my father and sister decided to make a dash for it and sprinted up the peak, leaving me with my mother, who was breathing heavily. Meanwhile, the sprinting group reached the top shortly, and we could see them waving to us from the top, as we made our way up the slope under the sun. As my mother finally heaved herself onto the peak, I took a moment to savour the 360-degree view around, from Tseng Kwan O in the east and Lam Tin in the west. At this high point, we can look over the buildings, rather than look at them, than from eye level as from previous views before.
But as we rounded the peak, we saw another peak in front of us, and we instantly knew that this wasn't the peak, the peak in front of us, with a couple of reflectors at the peak, shining brightly in the distance. But this climb wasn't really hard, as it was in the forest, with trees sheltering the sun from above, and we quite enjoyed the climb, spare a minor accident after tripping over rocks by my sister.
At the peak, we could really sit down and savour views of Tseng Kwan O and Junk Bay, a fabulous view to end the day.
After catching our breaths, we continued on the trail. Now, the trail meanders through the forest downwards, and soon we arrived at a road that leads towards Ma Yau Tong. Soon, we were in the village and facing Po Lam Road. Not much distance to cover for the remainder of the day! But then, as if the day didn't have enough unfortunates, Mothers suddenly reported that her waist bone hurts, and it hurts really bad.
After a moment of discussion, and this time with Mother hurt, I decided to end the hike for today and take a taxi back to Quarry Bay. Maybe we can finish the hike someday in the future!
As for the second attempt, we didn't start off where we ended last time, but started at Tseng Lam Shue, skipping Little Hawaii, since there isn't much to see on that section and we mightn't have enough time to complete the hike. We did this on February 13th, the Saturday after the last attempt.
After parking the car at Tsz Wan Shan, the finishing point of today's hike, we rode a taxi to Tseng Lan Shue to start off our hike. After zig-zagging through the narrow paths of the village, we soon abruptly arrived to an entrance to a forest, seemingly in the middle of the village. Besides were houses and small farms and suddenly there was a forest opening up ahead of us! The path here leads steadily upwards, soon crossing the boundary of the Ma On Shan Country Park and into it. This part of the trail is arguably the easiest of the latter part of the trail, as it is fully shaded, and the path soon flattens out, before going downwards again. Even though it might be relaxing, Mother kept complaining about how the more we walk down, the more we would have to walk up later to Tung Yeung Shan. It was also here, in the forest, where we had our lunch, a quick bite from MacDonald's.
Fully energised after our lunch, we continued on our way. At least for me and my mother. Father had to wait until my younger sister finished her burger before going on. Because Mother always was slow on stairs, we got to set off first.
The path continued downwards for another kilometre or so. And passing by a stream, where our group finally met up, we soon emerged to Tai Lam Wu Road, ending our relaxing nature journey.
The climb actually wouldn't start until after we exit the road a few hundred metres on, but when it did, the trail was undoubtedly steep.
But so far, the hike was pretty enjoyable, especially on Tai lam Wu Road, where there are towering clusters of bamboo, stretching up to at least 5 metres.
We almost missed the entrance to the trail on our left, but I had my map in my hand, and we soon exited the main road onto the small trail. The trail did not even hesitate on giving us stairs to climb. Once well out of sight of the road, the trail started up and up. We also passed by a deserted village right at the start of this section with a couple of teacups, a bit spooky if you ask me. On our way up, we also met a family of hikers who warned us about the treacherous path ahead, and how this path went steeply up continuously for a long time. We thanked them for the warning and started our exhausting climb up the slope of Tung Yeung Shan and Tate's Cairn.
We took it rather slowly, but still, we were tired before long, and when there were still most of the climb ahead of us. Mother was already gasping for breath, and we still had a long way to go. Father kept asking about our elevation every minute or so to check how far up we still had to go. We had to reach the peak of Tung Yeung Shan, a whopping 533 metres in elevation, at least for us, we never had to climb that far up. After half an hour of climbing up steep and large steps, we were all pretty out of breath. We were still in the forest, and it was quite shady, but we were all feeling quite hot, and the stairs kept on going. It looked like a never-ending staircase. It would just vanish in a turn, or in the distance, but there wasn't even a break in the stairs. It just kept on going and going.
But soon, we came out in the open to see the views open up to Sai Kung and Marine Cove. It certainly was a fantastic sight, especially since we were pretty late by the time we were at this stage. It was already 16:30, with one more hour of daylight, and we still had five or six kilometres to go. But the scenery out to Sai Kung was amazing (saving spectacular for later!), with sea and land and houses combined into one piece of wonderful landscape. This view was certainly one of the most unforgettable ones!
Soon, we turned away from the view and continued up the slope. Like I said, the trail never stopped for a breath in the upward slope. And soon, we knew what the family had warned us about before the climb. The trail became a bundle of rocks and boulders. But they weren't even reliable, you need to test each rock before you step on it, because most rocks are just loose! Scrambling up the slope, we finally reached the end of this treacherous section to find... More Stairs! Turn after turn, we would only find more stairs. Not that this trail is no good, in fact, it is the best trail I have hiked so far, especially with the views, and the 400-metre climb to challenge yourself, but when you are climbing, it really is quite tiring, especially with the sunlight quickly dwindling as time goes on.
We soon saw the Tate's Cairn Weather Station right in front of us, and we knew that the peak isn't very far away from here! Excited, me and my mother rushed on, while Father and my younger sister lagged behind. We reached an intersection. It wasn't really an intersection really, because one path had a big sign warning about landslides. It was supposed to be the trail, but then because of a recent landslide, that trail had been closed, and now we had to climb an additional thirty or so metres to the peak of Tung Yeung Shan! Except that there weren't stairs anymore. It was a makeshift path, so it was just a sandy and slippery slope, so we had to be careful not to slip and fall on the slopes.
As we finally climbed the last few steps to the peak, we found a fabulous view of a ridge in front of us, gold because of the sunset. There was still the Sai Kung view, but I guess we were kind of bored of that by now. The 360-degree view was amazing, especially if you came at sunset, where if you climb to the other side of the mountain, you could see the whole of the city, with the sun setting over the horizon. We didn't stay here for long, though, as it would be dangerous to slide down these paths at night. But if you drive your car up here, you really could savour the memorable view.
Briefly staying at the peak, we soon were on our way, as the sun was frighteningly close to the horizon. We half-slid down the slope of Tung Yeung Shan, as again, it was sandy and there were no handrails or stairs for support. We soon found a couple of hazardous points, where me and my mother both slipped and slid down a metre before finding our footing. We warned Father and my sister, who were a bit too cautious I should say, as they slowly, and I mean slowly, picked their way down the slope. We even caught them on camera from below of them sliding down the slope!
There were still a couple of kilometres in front of us when it was sunset already, but at least now we were on road, with streetlights to light up the way! This was far more encouraging than the never-ending staircase, as we made our way up the slopey road. As we continued along Fei Ngo Shan Road, we soon arrived at a view compass. But this was no ordinary view compass! Here, you could savour views of the whole urban area and city of Hong Kong. If you came at sunset, which we were lucky to see, you could see the golden sun, like an egg yolk, slip at once behind the horizon, leaving an orange and red sky behind. Along with the bustling city below, where the lights are waking up, it is truly a spectacular, memorable and mind-blowing view. You wouldn't get many more of these views in Hong Kong! No wonder the view compass is so crowded! Oh, speaking of the crowd, you need to force your way through to see the fabulous view. There is just so many people catching the sunset! There is actually a mobile toilet for emergencies too, which I had to use. And it was stinky and disgusting. I know it isn't doesn't really match with the spectacular cityscape, but it is there for emergencies.
As day turned into night, we hurriedly half-ran down Sha Tin Pass Road, but with streetlights all along the road, some people are still doing their daily jog, and are running upwards! It was certainly night now at 18:30 as we walked the final kilometres of the trail, and the night view is certainly not one you would like to miss. You could see the city come to life beneath you, and turn into a city of a thousand small lights. As you could pretty much see the whole city from here, it is certainly one you would come again to.
We reached Sha Tin Pass at 7 p.m.. People were happily barbecuing in the nearby village, and we couldn't even read signs without torches. But we were nearly there at Tsz Wan Shan, and we walked the final kilometre down to the city to which we looked at just an hour ago.
We arrived at Tsz Wan Shan at 7.30 p.m., certainly the latest we have ever ended our hike. But with the amazing sunset and night views, I'm sure you would agree, the evening was nicely spent. Except for my sister, who keeps complaining that the shoe shop from which she wanted to buy new shoes from, had closed already, and who was panicking about hiking in the night.
This hike was truly the top of my list so far, and one that I would gladly return to. There is hardly another view of Hong Kong in Hong Kong, and before you have seen it, don't criticise me for repeating that the view is spectacular and amazing!
Great Hike! Enjoyed Reading!😉