A hiking mini-adventure in the Northeast New Territories (Photo-essay)

Every time I hike in the area around Wu Kau Tang, I find surprises in store.  On my first visit to this section of the Northeast New Territories, I came acrosss abandoned villages and beautiful purple rocks, and checked out a section of Bride's Pool that I've since never been able to locate again!  On a Chinese New Year hike one year which began at Wu Kau Tang, I finally made it to Lai Chi Wo and found that there a number of other lovely near abandoned villages to the northwest of it at such at Kuk Po.

And on one more hike that began and ended at in the vicinity of Wu Kau Tang (specifically the bus stop at Bride's Pool that the 275R only goes to on Sundays and public holidays), my hiking buddy and I did such as get lost for a time and, as a result, ended up on trails that I had hitherto never been on and saw vistas I had never previously seen, at least not from those angles! Happily, we did not have to resort to calling for help from the emergency services.  Instead, and especially after getting back to a trail that was familiar to me, we can look back at the experience and consider it an actually not bad mini-adventure in the Big Lychee! ;b

I reckoned it was going to be a good hike when I spotted 

this near-camouflaged critter before we had even got off 

the road proper on the way to Wu Kau Tang

If not for the dates inscribed on them, you'd think that 

these village houses were older than they in fact are, right?

The first big surprise of the day -- discovering that the

nearby village of Kau Tam Tso looked to have been re-inhabited!

Shortly after passing Kau Tam Tso, we took 

a wrong turn and ended up along this hilly path!

If we hadn't veered off course though, we wouldn't have 

come across this interesting looking lizard ;)

 We wouldn't have gotten to see Plover Cove Reservoir

from this particular angle and vantage point either!

After realizing that we had strayed on to a section of the 

Plover Cove Reservoir Country Trail but definitely 

not wanting to go along it for long, we were relieved

to find a dotted trail leading northwards and downhill from it  

It was only after we were exiting that particular dotted trail

that we saw this warning notice about going along it! :O