December 24th 2020, Thursday. It is sunny, with a clear sky. A great day for Christmas Eve! But unfortunately, our family was tired from yesterday, and only woke up late. But we still thought that we could finish Dragon's Back in 3 hours, so off we went.
But then, traffic jams caused us to only arrive at about 2:30 p.m., and because it's winter, the sun sets earlier at around 5:30 p.m., so we needed to hurry up. So Father decided to drop us off at the starting point near To Tei Wan while he would park our car at Big Wave Bay and then he himself would ride public transport back, since he knew that Mother needed a lot more time climbing up the stairs to the ridge.
After Father dropped us off at around 2:45, my younger sister decided it was time for the toilet, so we yet had to wait another 15 minutes for her.
And because the stairs was very steep, we walked really slowly, our speed like a snail's, and I kept telling my sister and mother to hurry up, or else we wouldn't be able to finish before sunset. Oh, and also, there are occasional views of Tai Tam Harbour, further slowing down our progress.
Now, before I go on, let me explain the trail itself first. First of all, the trail information could be found on our trail website at https://chanbernard1005.wixsite.com/hihk7dragons-back. The trail itself is 8.5 kilometres, with a couple of emergency exits along the way, Pottinger Gap and Ma Tong Gap. It has a difficulty of normal, but is very steep in the beginning (getting onto the ridge), quite flat in the middle (on the ridge) and quite steep going down (leaving the ridge and to Big Wave Bay). The trail runs from To Tei Wan onto the Dragon's Back, passing Shek O Peak and goes around Mount Collision, before heading down towards Big Wave Bay. For your information, this trail is the last section, Section 8, of the 50- kilometre Hong Kong Trail.
Now, back to the stairs. On the way up to the ridge, we found a picnic site just off the path, perfect for our lunch (we still haven't yet eaten). And there, Father finally caught up to us, saying that he was lucky to catch the minibus, because the public bus wouldn't arrive to Big Wave bay before 3:45. So now, at 3:15, we finally finished our quick lunch, and again resumed our journey up to Dragon's Back.
Finally, after a long flight of steep stairs under the sweltering sun, we reached the top of the stairs, where there is a small lookout platform for some scenery. Not that you can see a lot, you can only see Red Hill and Tai Tam Harbour, so we king of skipped it. Here, my sister said that she had a serious headache, but because no one really wanted to go back with her, we continued on. After the small lookout, the path then becomes far more flatter, and we finally got our first glimpse at Shek O. You could see the smooth plane of the sea, and the short and shabby houses of the small town below.
We soon continued on, and my sister, after only 1.5 km into the walk, said that she wanted to go back. And my father had to go with her, and missed finishing the whole Hong Kong Trail.
Me and my mother continued on, climbing some steep slopes (sometimes hands are needed), and slowly but surely, we were ascending towards Shek O Peak. Throughout the walk, you could savour the views of the Tathong Channel, across where you could see Tsueng Kwan O, and the Shek O Golf Course, a small grassy field below, along with Shek O, and behind, you could see the treacherous slopes of D'Aguilar Peak, where hiking experts hone their skills, reinforcing the idea of hiking, especially in photos.
We were continuously exposed throughout our walk on the ridge, so we could see 360 degrees views, therefore including Red Hill, Tai Tam Harbour in our landscape. Even though we continuously stopped for photos, we were getting closer to Shek O Peak.
Sooner than expected, we climbed the last steps to Shek O Peak, where tens of people are crowding around the survey monument of the peak, as they posed on the flat top of the monument, though we have no idea why. (It looks cool, I guess). But we skipped the survey monument and went straight to the sign marking the peak of the mountain. Here, you could see the entire eastern coast of Hong Kong Island, except for Siu Sai Wan, including Big Wave Bay, Shek O, and some distant islands including Tung Lung Chau. It is certainly a nice view.
We very soon continued on to the Dragon's Back view compass, further on the ridge. There, we could finally see spectacular views of the sun close to setting, sending its glowing rays on Red Hill and Tai Tam Harbour. Unfortunately, there was a haze on Tai Tam, so we couldn't see very clearly. But on the whole, the 360 degree view was awesome, enjoying views from city to hills and forests, blue seas to the distant islands... We stayed there for a moment, before continued on our journey, because like I said, the sun is setting.
It was already 4:30 p.m (1 hour to sunset) when we left the view compass, so we hurried along the track, forgetting about photos. We soon left the ridge, following the trail, to circle around Mount Collison, because the peak itself is too dangerous for normal hikers, and the Hong Kong Trail, because it was mainly for family hikers, went around it.
However, because we were hurrying, we often accidentally kicked rocks that are jutting out from the ground, because as I said, it is a trail. We walked with our toes hurting, but we didn't dare stop because the sun was now already close to the horizon, and as we walked through the forest, our surroundings were frighteningly dark (because we were in the middle of the forest since we descended from the ridge), so we picked up speed.
We were now taking longer than we hoped, and by the time we arrived at Ma Tong Gap (only 5 km into the trail), we were totally exhausted. And it was already 5:10 p.m. We did consider exiting to Tai Tam Gap to take the bus back home, but our father and sister were patiently waiting at Big Wave Bay, so we continued again, this time finally finishing our manoeuvre through the hills on Dragon's Back, and headed towards Pottinger Gap, last stop before descending to Big Wave Bay. Now, the sky darkened even more, so we even ran for some hundred metres (luckily this part of the trail is a wide road), not even stopping to care about taking photos.
Finally, after seemingly ages, as we looked to the map every five seconds and our GPS dot seems unmoving, we saw a small field, and I announced to my mother that we have arrived at Pottinger Peak. Here again, I considered exiting to Chai Wan because it was almost completely dark (5:30p.m.) but my mother, determined to finish the whole thing, carried on. We were now totally exhausted at our speedy hike, but we were still 2 kilometres away from Big Wave Bay, and the sun was already starting to disappear. To make matters worse, we now left the main road and onto a narrow track in the forest, with again jutting rocks to trip us, and I was almost spooked when I heard something moving in the hills above us. We were also descending, so along with the uneven path, our speed again slowed, and I kept needed to look back and wait for my mother to catch up.
By this time, we didn't talk much, since we were tired, and needed to focus to finish the trail, except for my mother keep asking me for the distance remaining. Once, I thought that the distance post ahead of us was H099, meaning that we were only 500 metres away from the finishing line, but it was H098. Talk about raising false hopes.
Now a note here. I really do enjoy hiking, but no one enjoys hiking in the dark. We almost had to turn on our phone flashlights. And we were a bit frightened.
To our relief, H099 did soon come, and I was so excited to finish that I tripped forwards. Luckily I regained balance in time. By this time, our feet were shaking for each step, and we kept kicking into rocks and tripping. I even almost twisted my ankle, which would be bad, as we only barely heard the village dogs barking, meaning that we still had some ground to cover.
Finally, we left the country park and now we headed to Big Wave Bay Village. (We knew because of the 'leash your large dog' sign.) And as we finally reached the first building of the village, a small pole on the right marked the end of the Hong Kong Trail, H100.
I won't elaborate much, but I handed out the certificates and we all took a photo together, to conclude our long journey of the Hong Kong Trail.
Overall, I think that the Dragon's Back was really not a difficult trail, and is actually a great trail for families and experts alike with spectacular scenery throughout the trail. But one lesson we did learn, was not to start hiking when it's already in the middle of the afternoon.
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