Hiking sometimes without phone reception but always with a map (Photo-essay)

One gray day some time ago, two friends and I went on a Shing Mun Valley hike that took us around the main Shing Mun Reservoir.  Since the route is circular and also pretty obvious, in that one's going along the banks of the reservoir, quite a few people decided to go on it without carrying a map with them -- only to realize that they had no idea of how far they had gone and had left to go, and end up doing such as asking passersby who actually had bothered to carry maps with them (like yours truly) for directions and, in the case of one couple who looked so pathetic and exhausted, being given water and food by charitable souls (like one of my hiking buddies)!

In all honesty, it often amazes me how many people go hiking in Hong Kong without maps and sufficient water, and sometimes also without proper shoes on.  It's like they think that hiking in the Big Lychee's country parks are the same as going for a stroll in the territory's urban parks!  But not only are Hong Kong's country parks home to wild animals (some of them scarily ferocious) but there's no phone reception in significant swathes of them -- including, as I found out on this particular hike, along some of the sections of this 9.5-kilometer-long trail, including those where the paths are paved...

The water level was high in the reservoir 

the day that we hiked around it

 

 At the same time, it looked like it had been a long while

since there had been any run off from it

 

Fern fronds aplenty, and looking distinctly alien to my mind! ;)

 

So cool that I reckon they deserve a close-up shot :b

 

A number of streams flow into the reservoir

 

A tropical looking scene in this sub-tropical part of the world

 

Shing Mun Reservoir's particularly known for the 

paperbark trees that grow on its western banks

 

 Not content with following designated trails, some hikers opt to 

try out riskier routes -- and, in the process, meet with accidents :S