Day 4: Now that's what I call walking!

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08h30 and Michael Lington’s soft saxophone is waking me up. I head for the bathroom and am ready and packed by 08h50. Having learnt from the previous day that one shouldn’t go into breakfast at 09h00 because that’s the time everyone else goes, I made a mental note not to go at 08h50 either; there were even more people there as a plane load of Aussie’s had checked in the previous evening.

Foregoing the bacon, I settled down to watermelon followed by noodles, garlic green beans and chilli (with chopsticks) and, on finishing my coffee, made my way into the morning sunshine to stock up on lunch - Dutch rolls, raisin bread and Cranberry Danish Pastries, selected by taking a pair of tongs and loading the items onto a tray.

Back at the hotel, I waited with the others in Reception and joined in the group negotiation surrounding the fact that we needed exactly $14 for the bus ride to our destination and $14 back. Armed with the necessary change, we all snaked down the road to the bus terminus and commandeered two buses. Neither driver could believe their luck!

Our destination, some 30 minutes later, was the Lion’s Nature Education Centre, in the New Territories. Near the village of Sai Kung, this reserve is dedicated to enlightening all about the wonders of nature, vegetables, fruit trees, flora and fauna. We headed for the café!

An hour later, the rambling snake made its way past the Dog Adventure Area (don’t ask!) and just 15 or so minutes later, arrived at the village of Tsio Hung Hau for a tea break! Only just having had a drink, I wandered around the very expensive cars looking at the very expensive boats moored to the very expensive looking boardwalks.

Finally, at gone 12h00 we started the main feature of the day.

Heading off into the hills, we began our walk down the Sai Kung Peninsula, which contains isolated headlands and coves. Although there have been fishing villages here since the 14th century, the area is still unpopulated and, until recently, only accessible by foot. Initially, the path through the trees was made of concrete but it did climb and drop quite dramatically, wending its way through lush green trees and bushes with the tantalising glimpses of blue sea to our left. As we climbed, so did the sun and at one point, the temperature hit triple figures! Over an hour after we started out, we began our descent to Pak Ma Tsui at the tip of the peninsula where we’d have our lunch on the rocks by the sea.

Going right to the tip, I found a nice flat rock and sat down. It would have been nice to have found some shade but at least the hat and the breeze provided a chilling effect and a very enjoyable lunch followed. After lunch, I wandered through the rock pools looking at the sea urchins with their long sharp black spines, clinging to the side of the rock pools whilst crabs sidled across the sandy bottoms.

Having finished, several of us made our way back up the hill, in the searing heat, to try to get to the coolness of the summit. There, one of the party suddenly keeled over from the heat and was nursed back with sips of water. He bravely continued another 30 minutes in the heat to Trio Beach where the sand was white, the sea was dirty and the refreshment kiosk was closed. However, the pleasure of standing with two feet in two feet of cool sea water for an hour far outweighed any fear of what could be caught - even though some of the group decided to swim and other’s stayed under the trees.

We returned the way we’d come, climbing through the hot and humid jungle before finally arriving in the village of Sai Kung. Walking down into the village, we made our way to the harbour where we commandeered two Kaido and set off across the water to the main village. Our Amah (an elderly Chinese lady who probably lived on the boat) took us very gently across the harbour and, on reaching to dock, began to remonstrate with the first Kaido owner, probably commenting that she’d been paid more!!!

Arriving on the dock, I headed for the supermarket and bought a bottle of ice-cold Lychee juice, which didn’t last too long. I then rejoined the main group and followed up with a very large bottle of local beer, before we all moved on to an Italian restaurant. We were all a little dubious about having Italian food cooked by Indians living in China and, to be fair, the food was very good. The only problem was that the potato, cheese and salad starter was followed by mini chicken pizzas, which was followed by calamari, which was followed by Carbonara, which was followed by salami pizza, which was followed by a further pizza which was finally followed by lasagne. We’d actually given up before the second pizza arrived!

Leaving the restaurant with our doggy bags, we bordered two buses back to Kowloon where we gave our food to several deserving local poor people who were squatting by the side of the road.

All in all, a superb day in blistering heat where we’d climbed over 1000 feet in temperatures of over 100F. Great! Tomorrow we start at 09h00.

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