From Aberdeen to Admiralty via a route that took us along Dutch Lane

The name of a nature trail in Hong Kong that I went on

for the first time ever this afternoon :)

It may have been a gray day but good views

still could be had from the path

My favorite one of the bug pics I snapped on today's hike

Up until today, I've only ended hikes in Aberdeen rather than begun hiking from the town that gave its Cantonese name to the whole of Hong Kong.  But after a friend who lives -- but had hitherto not hiked -- in the area asked me to show him how to get to Aberdeen Country Park from the town below, I decided that I might as well take him along an outing that began at one of that country park's southern entryways, then went all the way up to Wan Chai Gap before going down the other side of the hill to Admiralty.

I knew my friend was going to enjoy the excursion when he pulled out his smartphone to take a photo soon after we entered Aberdeen Country Park and caught sight of the lower of its two reservoirs.  And considering how he kept on telling me beforehand that he was not in shape, he proved remarkably willing to keep on going and seeing more and more of the natural side of Hong Kong that often is just meters away from its urban sections!

On the way down from Wan Chai Gap, I saw the sign for Dutch Lane that was put up in April 2012 after some campaigning by the likes of Designing Hong Kong CEO Paul Zimmerman, and decided that the time had come to explore this path that's so named because, for many years, the Dutch employees of the Royal Interocean Lines had regularly walked along it from their company residences to their shipping line's office.  Another friend had previously told me that this path could be accessed from the mini park on Bowen Road.  So the aim today was to connect to Bowen Road via Dutch Lane rather than all the way down via the far steeper Wan Chai Gap Road.     

Although the initial section of Dutch Lane that veers off from Wan Chai Gap Road is paved, things soon got considerably wilder along what apparently (also) is part of the 700 feet contour line of the old city of Victoria.  With certain of the unpaved sections of this trail also being on the narrow side, I often found myself focusing my attention on the ground.  Still, every once in a while, scenic views of the city below would get me stopping to enjoy the sight of some of Hong Kong's skyscrapers down below! 

During our trek along the approximately 1.5 km trail, we only saw two other people about.  So it seems that Dutch Lane still isn't all that well known to hikers.  Either that or, as I remarked to my friend, the mosquitoes that we encountered along the way had scared off some folks.  But while I would have preferred for this (part of the) hike to have been pesky insect free, I nonetheless did enjoy checking out yet another trail on Hong Kong Island that shows how nature really is never all that far away in "Asia's World City". :)