From Bride's Pool to Siu Tan in the far northeast of the New Territories (Photo-essay)

As regular visitors to this blog know, I love hiking in Hong Kong -- and I strongly prefer to not go hiking alone.  What even they may not realize though is that the vast majority of my Hong Kong hikes have been undertaken with two hiking buddies -- one of whom has been my regular hiking friend since September 2011, the other of whom I met first fairly early along my hiking 'career' on an 18 kilometer trek organized by Roz's Group that took us from Shek Pik Reservoir to Tai O (see here, here, here and here for photo-essays of that long and wonderful hike).

Without the latter's entrance into my life, whom I tended to refer to as "my regular hiking companion" on this blog, I don't think I would have become as much of a hiking enthusiast as I've become.  This is because she and I proved incredibly compatible in terms of our hiking style and preferences -- and she also encouraged me to try harder hikes than I previously would have dared to attempt by sharing with me the idea that, "it's okay, we'll go slowly, and we'll make it...".

So you can imagine the devastation I felt when she told me some three years into our friendship that she was going to be moving back to Canada (for professional reasons).  Fortunately, all was not lost hiking wise because, by that point, the fellow that has become my second regular hiking companion had been hiking with us for some time.  

Still, I resolved to give my original regular hiking companion a nice send off by way of choosing a particularly nice hiking route for one of her last hikes in Hong Kong.  Thus it was that one Sunday afternoon saw my two regular hiking buddies, another friend and I going on a half day hike in Plover Cove Country Park that would take us through some of what I consider to be among the more interesting parts of Hong Kong...

 We began our hike in the watery vicinity 

of the legendary Bride's Pool

Not the famous Bride's Pool but Chiu Keng Tam 

(Mirror Pool) -- so named because some people saw 

the spirit of the drowned bride using the calm water 

in the area as a mirror as she combed her hair! :O

One of the more interesting looking 
village houses to be found at Wu Kau Tang

 Then it was past Kau Tam Tso -- 

where it can feel like time has stopped

Vibrant flowers but dead moth at Kau Tam Tso?

A long stretch of trail along which I didn't see 

any other people bar for my hiking buddies!

People -- and some nice food -- were to be found

at Fook Lee Tea House in Sam A Tsuen though :)

After lunch, we headed north and it was not long before 

we encountered another abandoned dwelling -- this one

a veritable mansion at Siu Tan

To be continued! :)