Tai Po Kau hike sights (Photo-essay)

I'm not sure if many other people do this... but I don't usually decide on my hike route until one or two days before the hike -- with my choices often being dictated by the weather (cool, hot, wet, dry, humid, etc.) and visibility (i.e., great, good or less so).  Thus it was that on a day where it was predicted to be hot and not great in terms of visibility, I opted to head to the Tai Po Kau Special Area -- where there's 440 hectares of thick forest (so lots of tree cover and the promise of lots to look at up close rather than in terms of views) -- for a 7.5 kilometer circular trek with my hiking companion.

The spotting highlight of the day were the many lizards (particularly skinks) that we encountered over the course of our hike.  But as the following photo-essay will hopefully show, we did enjoy catching a number of other interesting sights that afternoon too... :b

A pretty butterfly spotted resting right on the path 

we were going along that, if one didn't look closely, 

could easily mistaken for an autumnal leaf!

Surely not deliberately confusing but potentially so

just the same?

With so many tree roots on the ground, one did have to 

keep one's eye firmly on the ground while making one's way 

through Tai Po Kau (or risk tripping over at least one of them!)

A spider web made out of impressively 

dense and shiny threads

Is this a Harvestman I see before me?  

(I.e., an arachnid that's actually not a spider! :O)

Alternatively, this black creature seems to be a spider alright 

-- albeit one that lives in a hole in the earth!

 So bright orange was this particular toadstool

that it looked like it'd glow in the dark!

And for those who're wondering, this is the macro-view

of the forest that we got for much of this particular hike :)