Along Hong Kong Trail Stage 8 and more (Photo-essay)

Before anything else: hope everyone -- whether you live in a part of a world where Christmas Day is a public holiday or not -- have had good days.  Although it's been 15 years since the British handed Hong Kong back to the Chinese, Christmas Day remains a public holiday in the Fragrant Harbour.  And as has become a tradition of sorts for me, I went out hiking today.

But rather than put up pictures of that hike today, I'm opting to offer up photos from a hike I went on one windy as well as cloudy September day last year -- one that took me along the Dragon's Back and the rest of Hong Kong Trail Stage 8 up until Pottinger Gap, where my hiking buddy and I opted to follow the Pottinger Peak Country Trail until a turn off that brought us down to Big Wave Bay via a path that ends close to a prehistoric rock carving in the area.

Alternatively put, the hike we went on that day covered some ground that I had not previously been on as well as trails that I had been on before.  And yes, I do consider a sign of my growing confidence and familiarity with Hong Kong's hiking trails that I now feel able to cobble together a hike route from different official trails. :)

  As this view from early on the hike shows, it was cloudy

but visibility was not too bad at all that day

 

 Of course I had to take a photo of yet another

trigonometrical station that encountered on a hike! ;b

 The view from the top of the ridge takes in Shek O 

(including its golf course), Tai Tau Chau and Ng Fan Chau

 View from the Dragon's Back of Big Wave Bay

and the section of trail that we ended our hike on

Yes, there are indeed parts of Hong Kong Trail Stage 8

which are not up on the ridge

Spot the grasshopper? :)

A more close-up view of the path that could be seen

three photos above this one

A big sign warning of big waves was a sign

that we had made it to hike's end at Big Wave Bay :)