A bunch of us old friends from my secondary school went up Cloudy Hill (九龍坑山) on Saturday. It was a cool, sunny day, perfect weather for hiking. And we were richly rewarded for our efforts. Looking back over the hills that we climbed, towards TaiPo, where we started from, we were impressed by how far we had travelled already. The view was unusually clear at this time of the year, and particularly for this place. This hill is called Cloudy Hill for a reason.
The real Cloudy Hill was actually still ahead, with another steep slope to climb. To the left we can see Fanling. There was a feeling that we could observe Hong Kong from a distance, and be somewhat detached from it. Worldly cares seemed far away; material success did seem not that important, ...
From the top of Cloudy Hill, we could see quite far away: TaiPo, ToLo Harbour, MaOnShan, ..., on one side. On the other, FanLing and beyond.
Coming down Cloudy Hill, we went to ShaLoTung (沙羅洞, 沙螺洞). It is a village abandoned by its inhabitants. Vegetation has already taken over most of the open and not so open places. However, many people are now fighting over it because some developers want to develop it into a golf course or something. While some other people want to somehow preserve the valuable natural environment around it. I have a feeling sooner or later the developers are going to win. In Hong Kong, money speaks the loudest.
We went past a couple of small reservoirs near 鶴藪. They were really beautiful. We knew we were not far from civilization. But for a moment, we could really pretend that we had removed ourselves from it.
A bunch of us old friends from my secondary school went up Cloudy Hill (九龍坑山) on Saturday. It was a cool, sunny day, perfect weather for hiking. And we were richly rewarded for our efforts. Looking back over the hills that we climbed, towards TaiPo, where we started from, we were impressed by how far we had travelled already. The view was unusually clear at this time of the year, and particularly for this place. This hill is called Cloudy Hill for a reason.
The real Cloudy Hill was actually still ahead, with another steep slope to climb. To the left we can see Fanling. There was a feeling that we could observe Hong Kong from a distance, and be somewhat detached from it. Worldly cares seemed far away; material success did seem not that important, ...
From the top of Cloudy Hill, we could see quite far away: TaiPo, ToLo Harbour, MaOnShan, ..., on one side. On the other, FanLing and beyond.
Coming down Cloudy Hill, we went to ShaLoTung (沙羅洞, 沙螺洞). It is a village abandoned by its inhabitants. Vegetation has already taken over most of the open and not so open places. However, many people are now fighting over it because some developers want to develop it into a golf course or something. While some other people want to somehow preserve the valuable natural environment around it. I have a feeling sooner or later the developers are going to win. In Hong Kong, money speaks the loudest.
We went past a couple of small reservoirs near 鶴藪. They were really beautiful. We knew we were not far from civilization. But for a moment, we could really pretend that we had removed ourselves from it.
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