Epic Weekend, or, Lantau Island

So, about that epic weekend...

It all started when we met with friends of friends for a drink last Wednesday. First of all, they were delightful, and we felt like we were catching up with old friends rather than meeting new ones for the first time. There was a lot of laughing (and a lot of wine). Secondly, they had us meet them at this outdoor bar called RED, where we got to sit on a breezy patio overlooking the "fragrant harbor" (that's the phrase from which the name "Hong Kong" derives). It felt just right -- EXACTLY what one should be looking at while in this skyscraper city.

But most importantly for this story, they were quite a bit more familiar with the city than we were, and suggested some hiking options for us for whenever the weather cooperated. We decided to follow their advice over the weekend, and planned a trip out to Lantau Island to hike the second smallest mountain in Hong Kong, Lantau Peak.

Lantau Island is west of HK island (still part of the SAR though), and its northern part contains the airport. But the rest of the island is a mix of mountains, beaches, and parkland. We took the metro to the end of the line, which got us onto the island. Then we hopped into glass gondolas to travel 25 km up and over some beautiful scenery, bringing us to the town of Ngong Ping, which houses a lovely monastery and the "Big Buddha" (the biggest, outdoor, seated, brass Buddha in the world -- kind of impressive, except for all those qualifiers and the fact that it was built solely for tourism purposes within the past 20 years :-)). We walked quickly through the town to the trailhead for Lantau Peak.

The Lantau Peak trail is nicely maintained, but it has no switchbacks on the side we were climbing, so it basically goes straight up. And no shade -- which makes it quite the sweaty trail to take at high noon in the most humid city in which I've ever lived (sorry D.C. -- you've been trumped!) Plus, it's been awhile since I did any kind of hiking :-).

After lots of breaks on the way to the top (each of which had a breathtaking view), we made it up and over the peak. When we got down from the mountain, only about 3.5 or 4 hours had passed, so we thought we'd head straight to the beach. However, the trail placed us right on the side of a highway, albeit a highway with a sidewalk running alongside it. We trudged down that highway to the tantalizing beaches that we could see spread out below, but as much as we walked and walked and WALKED, we couldn't get any closer to them. After a couple more sweaty hours, we finally caught a bus to a town where we could hop the ferry back to civilization (HK island), but we were beat.

We woke up the next day with incredibly sore legs, having not used those muscles in that kind of way in awhile. But we still had "beach" on the brain, so we dragged ourselves out to the island again and hopped on a bus by the metro station, crossing our fingers that it was the right one.

After a speedy ride over some pretty big hills, we spotted what seemed to be a homemade sign for the beach we had in mind, and got off the bus (again with those crossed fingers that we weren't getting ourselves lost). We headed down a driveway and stepped through some trees to...paradise!

The beach was not too crowded, the sand was yellow, the open-air restaurants were serving BBQ and beer on the beach, and beautiful mountain scenery surrounded us. Tom and I took turns swimming in the South China Sea (someone had to keep an eye on our stuff -- although it seemed no one else on the beach was taking that precaution), and stayed to have dinner in the dusky evening at a South African restaurant. It was perfect.

So it's true that some of HK's most delightful past-times are to be found, not in the impressive skyscrapers, but in the outdoorsy "hinterlands." Tom and I are headed back this Sunday to hike the other major mountain on the island and get some more time at the beach. Just as soon as my legs stop aching!