more than a peek at The Peak
I have been away with this bunch for just over a week now, and during most of that time the skies have been overcast, with rain threatening but never quite making it. Today, no matter what, we had decided to go across to The Island (Hong Kong) for a another, longer look. We will be back on Mon. day, but only quite briefly (we hope) to pick up our passports with the Russian Visa stamps. We thought the Island deserved more than another brief look.
So this morning we sallied forth, and lo and behold, the day dawned bright and clear. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the air refreshingly invigorating. We had a plan to visit The Peak – to bus to the top
and walk back down. The Peak is the the top of Mt Victoria – one of the highest spots on the island. Originally developed as a ‘hill resort’ for the expat tea merchants and the Island’s Governor it is now dotted with incredible high-rise hotels, very up market residential blocks, very flash houses and at the top, the inevitable super shopping mall.
But it is not all buildings and from the top there is a very good walk that does a circular route around the top of the mount, giving you a 360 view of Hong Kong island. The walk takes you through a lot of HK’s natural flora, and very cool and refreshing it was.
Every so often long breaks in the foliage would allow some terrific views of the Island.
From up there you can see how they cram 6m people into this relatively small piece of land.
I said it was cool and refreshing: actually as we sat in the shade with the keen breeze whistling through our legs, it was distinctly cold, and we were all pleased to be up again and off on our walk.
We took the bus to the top: a great ride in a huge double-Decker that twisted and turned up the narrow winding road, brushing trees and shrubbery all the way up and giving us fantastic glimpses of the Island as we climbed. Getting on the bus was interesting: you need to have the exact fare to tender. Working out the total cost for this tribe is a real exercise: ‘these small ones, they go free; this one adult; this old man, half fare;’ etc etc. As Rob discussed the fare make-up with some sort of official, the guy finally said (in desperation I imagine) ‘ok $60 for all’ – which sounded fine to us as the basic fare was $9.50 each!
We thought of rewarding ourselves with an ice-cream after our walk around the peak, but a quick check on prices soon quenched that idea. I think Rob worked it out that it would cost NZ$180 for our group. Since we only spend about half that amount in Hong Kong $$s for our dinner (and we think that is expensive) we opted for a McDonalds Ice-cream after getting back down the mount. Everybody was content with the deal and off we walked. Walked down some steep and twisty walkways – fortunately all nicely sealed, but a strenuous descent, nonetheless. I have to confess that we did not walk the whole way back to the ferry but managed to catch a bus once we hit a main road. Once again the exact fare thing posed a problem, but after scratching up about $23 between us Rob hopefully offered it to the driver. Seeing our mob, and veering away from the mental arithmetic involved, the driver just took our handful of coins and waved us all aboard!
And so we earned our ice-cream, caught the ferry back over to Kowloon
and made it back to our noodle shop for dinner.
A long but very enjoyable day.
Some of you ask, how on earth do the little ones cope with such a big day. The quick answer is they don’t. Periodically one of the younger ones has a melt-down and loses the plot, but the fact is, they recover pretty quickly and continue to enjoy the day. In spite of the occasional hissy fit, everyone at the end of the day would say it was a day to remember.
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kiwijoe
March 16th, 2009 at 2:57 am
Impressive photos… you picked a good day to go up! My vague recollection of it (many many MANY moons ago!!) was cloudy and hazy…