Hong Kong Long Trail

Hong Kong Long Trail

Posted to OHE on 7 Jan 2000 by Wing C Ng (wing@lava.net)

I was in Hong Kong for 10 days, and did several hikes. I report on the most "serious" hike I did. For me, often a serious hike means walking in the dark :-)

The MacLehose Trail is 100 km long (1 km = 0.62 mi.), and comes in 10 sections. I did them all before except for Sec. 2. So I decided to do Sections 1–3 on 1/3/00, and also take a side trip to Nam She Peak.

Sec. 1 is paved road, 10 km; Sec. 2 is 13.5 km; and Sec. 3 is about 12 km. So the total is 35.5 km or 22 mi. Trails in HK are enormously better than on Oahu. They are at least 5 feet wide, and often have hard surface of paved stones.

The side trip to Nam She takes maybe two more miles (total 24 mi.). It means Python Snake. Never understood why, as no one has observed snakes there, but people claim that the peak looks like a snake rearing up its head. It is a sharp peak (indeed its name in English is "Sharp Peak"), that looks like Olomana 3rd Peak, but tamer.

I started at the end of Sec. 3 and backtracked. Sec. 3 was easy and in one hour I got to the intersection with Nam She trail. Took another hour or so to climb to the top of Nam She. There is one steep cliffy side at the top, but there are two sides which are not too bad.

I went down another not-too-steep side, which follows ridges that descend all the way to a long beach on the ocean. Then I walked on contour trails a couple hundred feet above sea level, much like the Kalalau trail, and then got to a village where I rejoined Sec. 2. There I bought three cans of soda to quench my thirst. Temperature was above normal that day, about 70 degrees.

Then I started on Sec. 2, which was terra incognita that I had never done before. Since it is only slightly longer than Sec. 3, I expected to finish in 1.5–2 hours.

Severe miscalculation. The trail follows the coastline with hills and bays. Up one hill, down into a bay, then again and again. The last stretch involved several climbs to about 1,000 feet, then another bay. It took 2.5 hours just to reach the last bay.

A couple walking the opposite direction said it was about 45 minutes to the end of Sec. 2. After one final climb, I reached the end at 5:35 p.m., about 1.5 hours behind expectations. The end is a massive dam that creates a huge reservoir from the sea.

There is another 6.2 miles of paved road that circles the reservoir. Darkness comes around 6:15, but I thought I was prepared with a cheap flashlight I had bought in town.

After sunset, dust particles in Hong Kong’s polluted air reflect distant city lights fairly well, even with no moon or stars. Walking was tolerable until about 6:30, when I took out the flashlight. As expected, the battery was nearly dead, emitting only a dim yellow glow. I turned it off and kept walking.

A car passed me, then turned around and came back. Two men stopped and said they were worried about me walking alone in the dark, but also suspected I might be an illegal immigrant. They asked me to turn around so they could inspect me, then let me into the backseat.

They referred to me as an “older gentleman,” which annoyed me, but not enough to refuse the ride. The drive took 10 minutes, what would have taken another hour on foot.

I thanked them profusely, picked up a taxi at the trailhead, and went home.

— Wing

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