Lamma Island paved wilderness walkways
her husband (neither spoke any law walking to Sham Wan Beach (I English) who showed us the fine nicknamed it Turtle Beach) where art of balancing on one leg. She they were sung to all the way down took many photos of us perfecting by the Chinese woman. (The beach this trick. is closed to the public from the 1st
After lunch we split into two June -31st October, this being the groups; my sister and brother-in- time when the turtles come ashore and lay their eggs).
My nieces and I climbed part way to Mt. Stenhouse (353 metres). This is a little used, narrow dirt track, with a couple of signs near where it leaves the main path with the occasional piece of ribbon tied to bushes by fellow hikers.
Most of the time the scrub was knee height and some areas it was above head height. Our biggest concern was the snakes. There are several types of snakes on the island (Bamboo snakes, Cobra, Green Viper, Rat Snakes, Python), most of them being poisonous.
One of my nieces and I were yelling out “Go away snakes, no more snakes” and beating the bushes. Our yelling and bush beating must have done the trick.
There were amazing views from the rock outcrop where we
stopped, some of them back to mainland Hong Kong with its sky scraper dominating landscape.
We took a different route to Turtle Beach to meet up with my sister and brother-in-law, clambering over huge boulders that looked like a giant had tossed them around.
My last two nights in Hong Kong I stayed with a friend of my nieces, also on Lamma Island, her apartment being a 25 minute walk from the ferry.
She belongs to a small hiking group and on the Saturday we joined three others. This meant an early start of 6.00am; not so good for her after a week of work, We caught the 7.40am ferry, then an underground train almost to the end of the line where we joined a long line to get onto a double decker bus.
We alighted from the bus at Shek Kou for a five hour walk on the Dragon’s Back, part of the 50 kilometre Maclehose Trail.
Another bus had just dropped off its passengers at the start of this arm of the trail. We moved into top gear to get past this large group of ambling tourists.
Once in front, the crowds thinned out, and at times there were just the five of us, a multinational group consisting of one