Ringing In The New Year.

Ringing In the Year of the Dragon.

Last Friday Peter and I met up with our friend Agnes in Discovery Bay. We had a lovely set lunch in Figo's. I had carrot soup, Steak Diane and chocolate cake. Peter had carrot soup, fish burger and vanilla ice-cream. Agnes had chickpea salad, chicken saltimbocca and vanilla ice-cream. Later we went to Coffee Academics for coffee, hot chocolate and ice-cream (between us, not each). I forgot to take any photos. I think we just got too busy chatting.

Agnes and I decided that we would also meet up again on Monday 12th for a hike. Our friend Ivy later decided to join us as well. I suggested that we should climb up Violet Hill on Hong Kong Island, because it is well-known for its Chinese New Year flowers which blossom in January and February each year. Chinese New Year flowers are dark pink, or pale pink and may even have some white parts. They are shaped like bells, so their blossoming coincides with people ringing in the new year.

On the day of our hike, I left home early. It was a public holiday and when I got to Sunny Bay, there was an enormous queue. At first, I panicked and thought people were queuing to get into the MTR. Then I realised the queue stretched from the bus-stop to the MTR, then back to the bus-stop, then back to the MTR, then right round one side of the bus station, ending up at the stop for the feeder bus to Macau. Honestly, there must have been around a thousand people in line waiting to go to Macau, just from that one stop. I can only imagine how crowded immigration must have been!!! I love Macau, but thank God I wasn't going there that day.

When Agnes, Ivy and I all finally met up, we boarded the number 6 bus which goes all the way to Stanley. On the journey I noticed that the Sikh Temple in Happy Valley was no longer covered in scaffolding. It has been undergoing renovation for ages and now looks really good.

Sikh Temple, Happy Valley.

I took a couple of views over Happy Valley as our bus climbed up the hill. It looked like it was going to be a lovely, sunny day.

Looking down on Happy Valley.

Looking down on Happy Valley.

We got off the bus at the Wong Nai Chung Reservoir stop and then headed up the steps to our right to get onto Tai Tam Reservoir Road. I think around half of the passengers on our bus got off at this stop, as so many walks start from this area.

We headed first to Wong Nai Chung Reservoir where there are public washrooms, then walked around part of the reservoir to find our path. There was a race going on and almost every competitor wished us: "Good morning!" as they ran by. They are friendly people - these trail runners, though they may just all have known Ivy as she does trail racing, too!!!

Wong Nai Chung Reservoir.

Wong Nai Chung Reservoir.

Us at the reservoir.

To get on the correct path for our hike, we came down the stairs at the end of the reservoir and headed left. As soon as we saw the sign for the Tsz Lo Lan Shan Path, we turned around and took the path going the other way up to Violet Hill. ( I have walked the Tsz Lo Lan Shan Path before. It's beautiful.)

Sign for Violet Hill.

The path starts with stairs, stairs and more stairs. Agnes and Ivy are both very fit, but I must admit I found the stairs quite tiring. However they didn't go on for too long, so it wasn't that bad.

Stairs, stairs and more stairs.

Every now and again at the edges of the pathway, there were Chinese New Year flowers. After saying in my last blog, that I had worked out strategies for photographing flowers, I have to confess I found these so hard to photograph. They really did not want to get into focus. I deleted soooo many failed shots it was unbelievable. One problem with photographing these flowers is that they are often quite high up in the trees. I've also noticed when photographing them on other occasions that they often grow on the edges of steep inaccessible slopes or in the middle of areas of dense foliage.

In the beginning stages of the walk most of the photos I took were close ups of individual flowers.

Close-up of Chinese New Year flowers.

Close up of Chinese New Year flowers.

Close up of Chinese New Year flowers.

Close up Chinese New Year flowers.

Chinese New Year flowers.

Every now and then as I climbed, I stopped and looked back the way I had come. There were beautiful views over Victoria Harbour and the skyscrapers of Hong Kong.

View on the climb up.

On occasions we all stopped and took one or two selfies with the flowers.

Selfie with flowers.

At one point Agnes pointed out a large number of fallen flowers on the path. They really are a cheerful sight in the colder winter months.

Fallen flowers.

After we had been walking for around fifteen to twenty minutes, I saw the trigonometric marker, indicating the top of the first hill. There were fantastic views over Hong Kong and Victoria Harbour from here, but it was incredibly windy. So windy in fact that it was impossible to stand there for more than a couple of minutes. It felt like we were all about to be blown away. My hair went absolutely crazy and was literally everywhere. There was a tiny little girl called Esther walking up the hill behind us. I was actually fearful that she might be blown right off her feet. Fortunately, she wasn't; she must have had a big breakfast to weigh herself down.

Trigonometric marker.

Windy selfie.

Windy selfie.

Looking towards Hong Kong Island.

Looking towards Hong Kong Island.

We continued our walk and the wind continued blowing with all its might. At certain points there were spectacular views over the Tai Tam Reservoirs.

Tai Tam Reservoirs.

Tai Tam Reservoirs.

Soon we came to a sign post showing a route down to Park View, a residential estate that is right next to the start of many different trails. It's also possible to start this walk from there. We walked away from Park View and followed the route for Tsin Shui Wan Au.

Sign post.

Looking down at Parkview.

The next hill we climbed, actually was Violet Hill. We passed some clusters of Chinese New Year flowers growing on the trees here.

Second trig

Clusters of Chinese New Year flowers.

Clusters of Chinese New Year flowers.

Clusters of Chinese New Year flowers.

These colourful bell-shaped flowers looked especially beautiful against the bright blue sky.

Chinese New Year flowers against a blue sky.

We took a few photos near the top of the mountain. Our route was actually part of the Wilson Trail Section One though if we had done the whole of that trail, we would have had to climb two more mountains, known as The Twins. These are famous for having thousands of steps.

Agnes and Ivy.

Agnes and Ivy.

Agnes and Ivy.

Me.

Agnes and I.

Mountain paths.

Wilson Trail marker.

For a while the path was very open with great views of the Tai Tam Reservoirs from a different angle.

This open path had great views.

Reservoir views.

Further on we could see the south side of Hong Kong Island where Ocean Park, Deep Water Bay and Repulse Bay are. There were lots of hikers on the trail, because it was a public holiday.

Descent with great views.

Looking towards Ocean Park and the sea.

Looking towards the residential areas on the south of Hong Kong Island.

Looking towards the residential areas on the south side of Hong Kong Island.

I saw lots of colourful foliage and some fried egg flowers. These are usually easy to photograph, but here they tended to be on unreachable edges.

Colourful leaves.

Colourful leaves.

Colourful leaves.

Fried egg flower.

Fried egg flower.

We got down to a level where we had several choices of walk. We could have gone back to our starting point by following the Tsz Lo Lan Shan Path to our right. This would have been the easiest option. Or we could have finished the Wilson Trail Stage One by climbing The Twins. This would have been the hardest option. We went for the middle option which was to continue on down the hill to a bridge, cross it, then head to the left to walk to the Tai Tam Intermediate Reservoir. This was the option I wanted to do for several reasons. One - I knew I would be able to do it, two - the Tai Tam Reservoirs are gorgeous and although I have been there many times, I really love them. I told the two fitter members of our group that if they wanted to do The Twins that was fine and I'd see them another time. My knees were quivering just at the thought of a thousand stairs. Anyway, in the end, we all agreed to the reservoirs.

This bridge is a popular spot for taking photos.

The path to the reservoirs starts out as a dirt track. In parts it's smooth and in parts it's rocky. It is crisscrossed by many streams. These contain very little water at this time of year, but would be torrents In the summer rains. There are signs telling people not to cross them when they are in full spate.

The path.

Agnes and Ivy navigating the rocky path.

Dried up stream bed.

Me crossing one of the dried up streams.

Me crossing one of the dried up streams.

Agnes and Ivy on a bridge.

Agnes and Ivy on a bridge.

There were lots of butterflies fluttering around us as we walked. At one point we passed two sitting happily drinking nectar from a fallen flower. Ex-journalist Agnes told me if I put the photo of them on my blog I should caption it 'Table For Two.' I rather liked that.

Table for two.

At one point a red based Jezebel butterfly landed on my arm and stayed there for ages. When it went, more butterflies gathered around me. I joked that I had smeared myself in nectar before leaving the house.

Me and my butterfly.

Every so often a dog walker and their canine child passed us by. Every time that happened the dogs went past so fast and so quietly we nearly tripped over them. They really took us by surprise.

Eventually we reached the Tai Tam Intermediate Reservoir Dam and went onto it to enjoy the view and take some photos.

First glimpse of the reservoirs.

Looking towards Tai Tam Intermediate Reservoir Dam.

Tai Tam Intermediate Reservoir Dam.

Tai Tam Intermediate Reservoir.

Agnes and I on the dam of the intermediate reservoir.

All of us on the intermediate reservoir dam.

Then we continued on down to the main path. I've been here lots of times and I know there is a beautiful arched bridge here. It's part of the Tai Tam Heritage Trail. I'm always trying to photograph it, but it's difficult due to all the trees that block the view. Well, this time, there were no trees. When we had a terrible black rain storm back in the autumn that caused masses of damage, there was a landslide here and all the trees and the riverbank fell down. It's still possible to see all the trees in the water down below. The view of the bridge nowadays is fantastic. I just hope the path doesn't fall down during a storm, too.

The arched bridge.

The arched bridge.

We were a bit worried about Ivy, as she had hurt her eye on a branch, but then she managed to spot two turtles from miles away near the arched bridge, so we decided her eyes must still be ok.

Ivy spotted these from afar.

We walked along the main Tai Tam Tuk Reservoir. It was actually breathtakingly beautiful with the blue skies and clear blue waters.

Tai Tam Tuk Reservoir.

Tai Tam Tuk Reservoir.

Tai Tam Tuk Reservoir.

Looking towards Tai Tam Tuk Main Dam.

We passed another couple of masonry bridges on route and took more photos.

Masonry bridge.

All of us on a masonry bridge.

When we got to the bus-stop, there was quite a big queue. I began to realise how spoilt I am being normally able to walk on weekdays and non-public holidays. However, as it turned out, we didn't have to wait too long till we were able to get on a minibus going to Chai Wan.

We were heading to Admiralty for lunch and Agnes and Ivy's former maths teacher was going to join us. Agnes and Ivy met in secondary school and one day when they were hiking from Tuen Mun to Tsuen Wan they bumped into a fellow hiker and realised he used to be their maths teacher. They got chatting and discovered he had relocated to Britain, but returns to Hong Kong regularly to hike. He had apparently been hiking every day of his most recent stay and has been aiming at climbing a hundred mountains here. What a fantastic way to spend your retirement.

We went for a Thai meal in a restaurant called Kin Kao Two. We had Thai green curry with pork, Hainan chicken, Pad Thai, papaya salad, steamed rice and lime soda. The food was excellent and we had all certainly worked up an appetite after our hike.

Thai green curry with pork.

Hainan chicken.

Pad Thai.

Papaya Salad.

After the meal, we all went out own separate ways. Before I went home, I took the opportunity to nip into Pacific Place as I was right next to it. I wanted to see it's Chinese New Year displays there, which were supposed to be very pretty. Actually they were really lovely.

Chinese New Year display in Pacific Place Shopping Mall.

Chinese New Year display.

Chinese New Year display.

Chinese New Year display.

After taking some pictures, I headed back home. It had been a very enjoyable day.