Today, I'll start walking along the coast of Hong Kong Island, and see how far I'll get! :D
Starting in Western District, which is bustling and densely-populated.
More of these trees that we saw in the last days! It's the Chinese banyan aka "curtain fig". And it seems that it's sometimes actively used to stabilize slopes!
Made it around Mount Davis, and reached Waterfall Bay!
This part of the coast consists of a couple of connected public parks, which feel nice to walk in.
Oh hello! It seems that instead of discarding your deity figure, you can bring them here, and a member of the local community will take care if them!
Other places I've been to: "Oh yeah, the city has a *downtown* area, and there you can find a couple of higher buildings."
Hong Kong: *casually sprinkles 40-storey skyscrapes all over the place*
Made it to Deepwater Bay in the South of Hong Kong Island, the first beach I've seen here. Time for a break!
The map I'm following for the "around-the-island trail" denotes a couple of "safe deviations". So far, they seemed to lead around construction sites, for example, and once, to avoid a locked gate (which I realized too late, and which caused me a ~2 km detour. 🤦
But for this one, I'm glad that I didn't follow the deviation, and instead followed the shore!
It seemed like a bit of a gamble: Following the shore could be a really pretty and interesting path (instead of walking along a street).
On the other hand, the path could be impassable, or dangerous.
I also (again) realized too late that the official route would go another way, so it would've cost me time to turn around. I decided to see how far I'd get!
It quickly turned out that it would be an uphill hike. The first few steps were still made from concrete...
...but the stairs quickly turned into a somewhat crumbly (but safely walkable) situation.
So I followed this path up for maybe 20 minutes. At ~22 °C, I was sweating a lot!
A mid-forest crossroads had this beautiful way of marking the different directions!
At one point, I met two people hiking downhill, which gave me a feeling or relief: I would be able to get through there *somewhere*!
Eventually, the view opened up, and revealed the Stanley Peninsula!
I continued on that path, and reached a concrete street again, that led to a water reservoir on the top of the mountain.
That was a neat little sub-adventure! :D
And just as I was considering my next steps, *these* folks turn up! :'D @robbi5 @ubahnverleih
We had joked about playing "tag" (and I was carrying an AirTag), but I hadn't *actually* expected to be hunted across the island! xD
The canal continued curving along, and finally ended in a water reservoir. That was a very pleasant, relatively flat path!
We entered peaceful bay, and found this bike graveyard close to a settlement. One person seemed very surprised that three foreigners would pass through here.
Next, we're following up a dry river bed.
"If it's mapped as a path in OSM, we can walk it"?
Next, we balanced along this pipe... 😱
Just kidding.
We won't actually need to do that.
I think.
@noiob @blinry doesn't seem like it, but at least it's named "The Pipe" https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/323624505