Hiking on the Sai Kung Peninsula on a changeable weather but consistently visually stunning day (Photo-essay)

There's a Dinah Washington song entitled What a Difference a Day Makes that I've loved ever since being introduced to it by Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express.  Every once in a while, I think of it and reflect on how it really is true that one's life, mood, etc. can seem so different 24 hours later.  Then there are those days when it seems like things -- or, at least, climactic conditions -- can vary hour to hour, never mind be different from the previous day.  

Such was the case the day that I first made my way along the first half of Section 3 (or Stage 3) of the Maclehose Trail; with my notes of that hike on the Sai Kung Peninsula -- a body of land which actually is larger than the whole of Hong Kong Island -- including the observation that we had experienced weather so changeable that it had been variously super cloudy, a bit rainy, sun-shiny, cool and warm in the space of a single afternoon!  Still, when looking at the photos I took, it seems that regardless, it all looked pretty visually stunning that day! :)

It was the kind of day out in the Hong Kong countryside 

when the hills in the distance, not just the sky, looked blue :b

 

On steep sections of trail such as this, stone steps are welcome 

on the way down but not necessarily so when going up!

 

Even while huffing and puffing, it pays to keep a look out

for cool critters, like this large praying mantis :)

 

A section of the trail I could easily imagine turning into 

a muddy waterfall during as well as after a downpour!

 

 That's actually my shadow in the picture but it 

doesn't look all that human, does it? ;b

 

To doubting Thomases: yes, there really are 

parts of Hong Kong that look like this! ;b

 

The 100-kilometer-long Maclehose Trail continues 

up both Kai Kung Shan and Ma On Shan

 

But the friend I was with on this hike and I elected that afternoon

to leave the Maclehose Trail before we even passed Lui Ta Shek! ;b