Diving Thoughts

Divers used to be a fairly sedentary bunch. Heavy exercise meant carrying 2 pints of bitter and a meat pie from the bar to a table and was only to be attempted if you couldn’t find a waiter to carry it for you. Your average diver would make Father Christmas look anorexic, and would get out of breath climbing up the ladder on the dive boat, even without his dive gear on.

With that in mind, I’m a bit worried that some of our members are not real divers. Not for them the real diver’s beer belly. Instead they are fit and lean like greyhounds, albeit with a lot less hair. Not for them the real diver’s pursuits of propping up the bar until the small hours. No, they spend their small hours hiking over mountains and running along catchwaters. What inspires this enthusiasm for vast quantities of exercise and pointless sporting activity? I can only assume that they are going through a particulary serious mid-life crisis. This mid-life crisis has culminated in them planning to walk 100km for charity on 20th November as part of Trailwalker 2009.

And who are these pseudo-greyhounds? Our very own Andy Eastwood, Andy Niven and Rob Christie. And Mike.

Their team name is South China Diving Club, although in view of their emotional state and their physiques, a more appropriate team name might be The Mid-Life Whippets. And Mike.

Here’s a few words from the Chief Whippet about how we can help…

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Hello SCDC,

We are pleased to announce that (for the first time ever!) a South China Diving Club team has been assembled to compete in the Oxfam Trailwalker Charity Walk across Hong Kong territory on November 14th.

Each year Oxfam organizes the Traliwalker event to raise funds for the needy and impoverished. Teams of 4 walkers join together to show their support and raise funds by hiking 100 km (62 mi) across the territory.

We are asking all of you to please consider making a pledge to the SCDC team and donate to Oxfam. This year’s donations will go towards helping impoverished communities in Asia combat the impact of climate change on their environment.

You can make a pledge by visiting the link below and clicking on the ‘Sponsor Us Now’ button:

https://admin.oxfamtrailwalker.org.hk/en/registration/teamDetail.html?teamId=200954238

Thank you very much for your consideration, and we look forward to telling you all about this challenging event once we have finished!

Best regards,

• Rob Christie
• Andy Eastwood
• Andy Niven &
• Mickey ‘Big Ears’ Belshaw

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This year, the fund raising will go to benefit the following:

• Helping poverty stricken areas of western China to adapt to extreme weather changes with eco-friendly programs to introduce solar stoves and produce biogas from livestock waste.
• Reduce vulnerability to severe flooding in Bihar state of India through training and skill development with the local community, such as how to create makeshift floatation devices and lifejackets.

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Notes about Trailwalker (Hong Kong):

+ Teams have up to 48 hours to complete the challenge. Our team is targeting to complete within 24 hours.

+ Despite its dense city, Hong Kong territory is mostly country parks with spectacular mountains and sweeping views of the ocean.

+ Trailwalker starts at the eastern most point in the territory and finishes on the far western side of the peninsula.

+ All proceeds go directly to Oxfam; the race participants receive no funding from the donation (and walk away with only sore legs!)

+ Hong Kong residents will receive a receipt for tax filing. Apologies, but if you are not a Hong Kong resident your donation is not tax deductible.

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So please give generously and support our team. It’s for a good cause, it’s tax deductible, and it’s a small price to pay to see the pain these guys will be going through. (Large donors may be given the opportunity to prod their blisters).

To conclude, I’d just like to say Good Luck to The Mid-Life Whippets. And Mike.

It was a nice day on Saturday, and starting to cool down slightly from the summer highs, so Rita and I headed over to Mui Wo at around midday to hike stages 1 and 2 of the Lantau Trail. Stage 1 starts pretty much from the ferry terminal at Mui Wo but we didn’t spot the actual starting point or the first 500 metre marker post, probably because we had to go to the cashpoint. We ended up picking up the 2nd 500 metre marker post on the South Lantau Road.

Stage 1 goes along the South Lantau Road from Mui Wo to the big campsite and barbecue area at Nam Shan. It’s up a mild slope and is only 2.5km long. Since it was a Public Holiday on Saturday for Mid-Autumn festival there were quite a lot of buses and taxis travelling along the road, but even so it was a pleasant walk with some good views over Mui Wo between the trees.

Stage 2 starts at Nam Shan, and heads relentlessly up Sunset Peak (Tai Tung Shan). Quite a lot of the climb is through woodland and it is not as steep on this side as it is coming the other way from Pak Kung Au. There were quite a few other people on the trail, more than I was expecting since it was still quite warm.

Eventually we broke out of the woodland and, despite the haze, we were treated to some great views of Pui O on one side and Mui Wo on the other. We carried on and between Yi Tung Shan and Sunset Peak there are a number of huts scattered on the grassy slopes. I believe these are owned by Christian groups, presumably ones with fairly fit members as they are nearly 800 metres above sea level.

Sunset Peak itself is 869 metres high, but the path skirts the summit, at around 800 metres before dropping sharply down to Pak Kung Au which is at around 340 metres. Despite the fact that the climb from Mui Wo is almost twice as high, it is certainly a lot more gentle and I was glad we’d done it this way round.

I’ve seen Pak Kung Au variously translated as Great Uncle Valley and Nosy Old Man Valley. It is where the Tung Chung road crosses the line of hills that form the spine of Lantau, on its way to Cheung Sha beach. We followed the old road, which is now disused, down to the beach, then along to the Stoep for a recuperative beverage and an excellent steak.

Time: 12:00 – 16:00
Temperature: 28-30C.
Relative Humidity: 80%

24 Jan:

A bit late to post this but in January, a week after the extensive hill fires in Pat Sin Leng, Rita and I set off to hike the final 3 stages of the Wilson Trail, which go up and over Pat Sin Leng.

We’d covered the first 3.5km of stage 8 a couple of weeks earlier, so we started from Tai Wo KCR station. First of all we had to overcome the incredibly confusing signposts, one of which was at a crossroads with the Wilson Trail signed in all 4 directions! We ended up taking a big detour around Parc Versailles, along Mui Shu Hang Road. Finally we found the path and headed up Cloudy Hill. On the way up we got some good views over Hong Lok Yuen, and back over Tai Wo to the earlier parts of stage 8. It’s a long drag up Cloudy Hill up a seemingly never-ending set of steps. A couple of lower peaks before the final climb up to the transmitter station at the top, which marks the end of stage 8. Since there is no transport up there, if you’re just planning to do stage 8, you’re better off carrying on and finishing at Hok Tau Reservoir.

After a quick water break we headed down an incredibly steep road, before branching off on the path down to Hok Tau Reservoir. The reservoir is quite small, but very pretty, surrounded by shady trees it is a welcome break from the exposed hillside you climb up from Tai Wo. After a short stroll half way round the reservoir, it’s back uphill again, this time up towards the ridge that becomes Pat Sin Leng. It’s a long, steep climb up a rocky path, that finally heads up on to the ridge line. All along here we could see the effects of the previous weekend’s fire. At one point we came across one of the sigposts that was lying on the ground, partially burnt, but still clearly recognisable. A previous hiker had laid it down pointing in roughly the right direction.

The views were good from up here, we could see Luk Keng where we were hoping to finish, as well as Shenzhen and the former Russian aircraft carrier, the Minsk, in the background. Pressing on along the ridge we came Pat Sin Leng itself, which refers to 8 minor peaks over a 1km distance, each named after a Chinese god. Rita carefully explained to me who all these were, and I promptly forgot, as I was more concerned with putting one foot in front of the other and getting to the end. Finally we reached the final peak, above Tai Mei Tuk, and the end of stage 9.

Steep steps down took us to the path towards Luk Keng and we carried along for several kilometres before turning left. Along here were some deserted old villages, which are now overgrown with trees. There was a right turn off this path that also led to Luk Keng, but we carried straignt on towards the Edward Youde Pavilion. We bypassed that and eventually hit a water supplies road that led down towards Nam Chung village.

Part way along we came across the end of the trail. Now I have a number of criticisms of the Wilson Trail. The signing is poor in some parts, but that can be solved with a good map and a bit of patience. Some of the distance markers seem to vary a bit from the 5oo metres apart that they are supposed to be, but then I’ve not actually measured them accurately. But my two main complaints, are that I don’t know how long the trail is, and I don’t like where it finishes.

First, the length. The documentation I have seen seems to list it as 78km. Now I suppose that could include the MTR section between Quarry Bay and Yau Tong (or Lam Tin, since Yau Tong MTR didn’t exist when the route was originally set up).  But nowhere have I seen the actual distance that you walk mentioned. The final marker post is number 137, which if they are at 500m intervals would seem to imply that it is 168.5km long. Which brings me to my second complaint, whether it is 78km or 167.5km, why? Is this some auspicious number? Now I could accept it if the trail finished somewhere sensible, like Luk Keng which does at least have a minibus to Fanling. But it doesn’t! It finishes half way down a water supplies department service road, approximately 2km from Nam Chung village and the main Luk Keng road. In short, it finishes in the middle of nowhere, after completing an apparently arbitrary distance. At least it starts at a bus stop, but it doesn’t finish anywhere near a bus stop or any other form of public transport. It’s as if they bought 137 marker posts and resolved to stop whenever they ran out. It’s as if the Maclehose trail had stopped after 96.5km, part way along the catchwater outside Tuen Mun! I just think former Governor Wilson should have a word with AFCD and find out what they could possibly have been thinking! After all, if they’d carried on to marker post 140, it would have finished in Luk Keng, at a sensible end point, after walking a sensible 70km.

Anyway after we’d finished, we then had to walk 2km down to the road from where we were very fortunate to pick up a minibus to Fanling.

• Section 8: 3.5 km from marker posts 98 – 105 took us 1 hour 30 minutes
• Section 9: 10.5km from marker post 105 – 126 took us 3 hours 50 minutes
• Section 10: 5.5km from marker post 126 – 137 took us 1 hour 40  minutes

On Sunday 18 Januuary, we set off from Admiralty at just after 11am, changed trains at TST to the KCR or whatever MTR are calling it these days. We got off at Tai Po Market and switched to the 275R bus to Bride’s Pool. No brides, but a bunch of chatty girls from the Philippines who were heading for a barbecue. On the way up we got some good views of the hill fire raging up on Pat Sin Leng. There was a helicopter water bombing it, and apparently there were 120 firemen up there battling it at one point. It’s a good job we weren’t doing stage 9 of the Wilson trail this week.

We were walking at 12:30,  and after one wrong turning, a bit of down and a bit of up, we made our way to Wu Kau Tang where we turned right towards Sam A Chung. There are a number of abandoned houses close to the path, which have been left pretty much as they were. The odd window is broken and all the contents are covered with a thick layer of dust. Further along were some more abandoned houses, but these looked older, were built of stone and were being reclaimed by nature. Abandoned houses and villages were going to become a bit of a theme of this hike.

From Wu Kau Tang to Sam A Chung the track goes along a fairly level valley with hills on either side. There was some evidence of hill fires along these hillsides so it’s clearly been a dry few months. Sam A Chung has a campsite and some lovely views of Yan Chau Tong (Double Haven), which is a marine park. We used to dive there regularly on the artificial reefs – several ships were sunk there partly as a marine habitat and I suspect partly to try and block the trawlers that used to swing through there at night when no-one was looking. The wrecks do have extensive fishing nets on them, but they used to be extremely good dives. Visibility was never that good, but the fish life was prolific. Sadly there was a toxic algae bloom a few years ago that killed off all the life on the wrecks and led to the fish leaving. It also left them even more silty than they had been before. We do try them occasionally but there is no sign of them improving.

From Sam A Chung we headed north to Sam A Tsuen. We took a slight detour to see a row of half a dozen old houses, which have also been abandoned. Some of them were quite large and one had a large kitchen with a large oven, plus a huge wok and space for another, as if it was some sort of local eatery. One of the places even had what looked like a rice threshing machine in it.

From here we went north-west to Lai Chi Wo, where there are some really nice trees in the coastal area. Recently a boardwalk nature trail has been built there with descriptions of some of the plants and animals you might see. There is a ferry pier here and it is quite a popular place, as it is a very well-preserved, and still inhabited, Hakka village. Sadly we didn’t have time to explore the village this time.

Instead we turned right and before long we were climbing to get over a headland to So Lo Pun. From there it was up a steep, wooded hillside past another abandoned village – this one quite a large village with even the remains of a children’s climbing frame. Above the village we came across and old water tank, and kept going up. Bizzarely, despite having done this walk several times before,  Trevor didn’t remember walking up this hill, although he did remember walking down it.

Eventually we came to Yung Shue Au is another large abandoned village along the waterfront. We found a path leading up yet another hill which finally brought us out with a view over Yantian, which has grown into a large container port. Perhaps in a sign of the economic times, there were only 3 ships there.

To the left of Yantian was an unexpected sight – an aircraft carrier! This was the Minsk, which served in the Soviet and Russian navies between 1978 and 1994. In 1995 she was bought by a South Korean businessman and later resold to a Chinese company. She became the centrepiece of a military theme park in Shenzhen.

We turned left along Starling Inlet towards Kuk Po, and finally on to Luk Keng. From there we got a minibus to Fanling KCR station, which took us back for a good meal at the Chili Club in Wanchai.

This is one of my favourite walks in Hong Kong with a huge variety of different things to see. Some good views, some historic villages, and to finish off with – an aircraft carrier!

Distance: Approx 18km. Time: 5 hours. Temperature 21-23C. Humidity: 75%.

Great hiking weather in Hong Kong at the moment, so I skipped a dive and went walking instead. Our plan was to walk stage 1 and 2 of the Wilson Trail.

Stage 1 of the Wilson Trail starts just north of Stanley on Stanley Gap Road and you kick off with a climb up the first of the Twins (for Cantopop fans, this one must be Charlene as it’s a bit taller than Gillian). It’s described as very difficult. After the Twins, you climb Violet Hill before dropping down to Parkview where the stage ends. We had a lovely cloudless day and from the second of the Twins, we had a great view of the trail ahead.

Stage 2 starts at Parkview and goes up over Jardine’s Lookout, down and then up the side of the quarry, before turning left and gradually heading downhill to Kornhill. Jardine’s Lookout has some great views over Hong Kong. As you start climbing up to it just after leaving Parkview is a plaque to Sgt. Major John Robert Osborn of the 1st Battalion, The Winnipeg Volunteers, Canadian Army. During the defence of Hong Kong against the Japanese he was killed very near to the spot where the plaque is. He was awarded a Victoria Cross, and part of the citation reads:

Several enemy grenades were thrown which Company Sergeant-Major Osborn picked up and threw back. The enemy threw a grenade which landed in a position where it was impossible to pick it up and return it in time. Shouting a warning to his comrades this gallant Warrant Officer threw himself on the grenade which exploded killing him instantly. His self-sacrifice undoubtedly saved the lives of many others.

You can read the full citation and find out more about him on Wikipedia.

That’s not the only evidence of the war on this section of the trail. Just after climbing the hill by the quarry we came across a boarded up tunnel, but we were able to climb around the boards and since we had torches, we ventured inside. Fairly quickly the tunnel split with a left hand branch running parallel with the contour of the hill. There was another smaller exit, then the roof dropped down a bit, so rather than crawl along the floor we turned our attention to the main branch which had headed straight on. This got a bit narrow, but went for about 40 yards before coming out on the other side of the hillside in a wooded area. Presumably the tunnels were left from the war, but whether they were built by the British or the Japanese is not clear.

Towards the end of stage 2, the trail goes past 2 outdoor kitchens with several rows of stoves. In 1941 Shau Kei Wan was a densely populated area in Hong Kong, and these cooking areas were built to cater for large numbers of people in case of Japanese invasion. However they were never used as Hong Kong fell relatively quickly. It now looks as though some people have turned them into a flower garden, with some nice flowers, and even a cactus, growing in the old stoves.

Stage 1 is 4.8km long and took us 1 hour 55 minutes.

Stage 2 is 6.6km if you go all the way to Yau Tong (via the MTR). If you stop at Kornhill like we did it’s about 4.5km and it took us 2 hours 20 minutes, although that does include the tunnel detour. Temperature: 16-17C. Humidity: 40%.