Tai Po Road – Sun Uk Ka (Stage 6 & 7)
Saturday 18th February – 3h 18mins – 15km
Finally I had a clear day, and started up the road past Shek Pui and the Kowloon reservoirs, towards the exotically named Smugglers’ Ridge. This is a prime monkey country, and I’ve had some hair-raising experiences in the past making my way through swarms of them. Today there were only a few around, lazily grooming one another on the concrete verges of the road.
At the top of the slope, you can look back towards the towers of Kowloon, and in particular the ICC, Hong Kong’s tallest building, standing proud against the Island beyond. As you continue in the other direction, bulky Tai Mo Shan looms large. Today was so clear that it felt closer than ever, as if touchable.
Once on the ridge, you are back on the ‘gin drinkers line’, and passing abandoned tunnels with whimsical names like Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross, before sloping downwards to Shing Mun Reservoir, where the Wilson and MacLehose trails briefly converge. I had to fight my way through a giant Scout troop, with parents in tow, before starting Stage Seven’s punishing climb
Needle Hill is one of the scrambliest ascents on any of the four main trails and, while it is tough going, I’ve done it at the height of summer and lived to tell the tale. On a clear day like this, situated as it is almost in the geographical centre of Hong Kong, you can see all four trails spreading out like spiders’ legs. There’s Ma On Shan, and Lion Rock (from an angle at which it actually does look like a reposing lion). Further away there’s The Peak, and the Island’s various summits and troughs. And way off in the distance I could see Sunset and Lantau Peak. Meanwhile Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong’s highest, is ever-present, a reminder of what’s still to come.
The next part of the trail is a paved, although deceptively steep, meander up to Grassy Hill, with more fine views, and then a very steep, clumpy descent to Leadmine Pass. On the way down I passed two cows, and almost got a once-in-a-lifetime shot of one mounting the other with Tai Mo Shan in the background. Sadly for me, and them, the congress wasn’t a success and they had moved apart before I got my phone ready.
The route down to Tai Po – back on the Wilson Trail by this point – was steeper than I’d remembered. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue, but I’d resigned myself to climbing back up this path when I resumed the trail next week, and so kept casting rueful glances at the steps rising behind me as I slowly reached the villages on the outskirts of Tai Po, and a waiting minibus.
WhatIDidIn Hong Kong 