On the weekend I left Asia my friend Winni happened to be in Hong Kong for a wedding so instead of flying straight home I flew from Shanghai to Hong Kong and spent a few days exploring some more.

I’d been to Hong Kong just a few months ago and really enjoyed it but this time as the temperature was a bit cooler I wanted to get out to the countryside. As Winni was busy Sunday morning I went for a hike along a section of the Hong Kong Trail between Tai Tam reservoir and the Dragon’s Back Ridge.

Not a lot of people realise that Hong Kong is mostly countryside. Not through choice, I think, but because the terrain is too mountainous to build on. I love the way you can just hop on a bus from the centre of town and be somewhere like this in less than 15 minutes:

hk_mountain_scale

Near the end of my route there’s an impressive ridge called “Dragon’s Back Ridge”. I was running out of time so I rather than take the meandering route up I decided to proceed directly up the side. This turned out to be a bit of a mistake as I nearly collapsed from exhaustion at the top. You would get very fit hiking in Hong Kong every weekend.

ridge_scale

For the remaining day and a half I did some exploring with Winni, which was fun as she actually knows where is good to go. Unfortunately the weather got a bit hazy so the photos aren’t as good as last time.