The Peak - any excuse to climb up there

Following on from a highly successful hike to the Lion Rock in Kowloon, myself and Sophie decided to capitalise on the good weather and lull in uni work by going for a second hike in three days.  This one was set to be a little more sedate than the Lion Rock, starting at Victoria Peak and heading eastwards along the island towards Aberdeen Reservoir and the Wan Chai gap.  Having experienced the peak tram enough times for its novelty to not be worth queuing for, we got the number 15 bus from Central station (underneath the IFC) up to the Peak.  In many ways this is actually a more scenic option, especially if you can get a seat on the top deck of the bus.  After spending the obligatory quarter of an hour seeing how many different angles we could get of Victoria Harbour, we walked behind the large shopping mall at the Peak and made our way east.  We soon passed through the luxury residential area (and the cute fire station that serves it) and were by ourselves on a shaded footpath heading downhill.

The beauty of hiking in Hong Kong as a city (and what in my opinion makes it so unique) is that in the space of a few minutes you can leave a major tourist centre and find yourself in your own little piece of isolated wilderness and this was no better proven than the hike today.  Being a Tuesday morning, the only people we only saw a handful of other hikers and had soon escaped the roar of traffic from the city.  For the most part the hike was easy going and while the views were not particularly spectacular, the charm of this hike was the knowledge that we were doing it essentially in the middle of one of the world’s financial capitals.  It took around three hours to get from the Peak down to Aberdeen Reservoir, where there were some picnic spots and options for further hiking - we had the choice of going over to Aberdeen or clambering back up the Wan Chai gap to meet another bus coming back down from the Peak to Central station.  We chose the latter as we both had other plans for the afternoon, but agreed that the brief hike had been a worthwhile half-day excursion and had shown yet another side of the city.  The hike was taken from my ‘Historical Hong Kong Hikes’ book by David Pickerell - a book that I can thoroughly recommend purchasing.  Photos of the hike below:

Aberdeen Reservoir

Towards Aberdeen