Saturday, 31 March 2012

Wilson Trail - Jardines Lookout

Parkview is inside the Tai Tam Country Park which at 1,315 hectares covers 1/5th of Hong Kong Island.

Just outside Parkview, is the entrance to the Wilson Trail a well-known hiking route


Stage 1 starts down to the south in Stanley, climbs over the southern hills to Voilet Hill and finishes on Tai Tam reservoir road, just outside Parkview.  Stage 2 continues north over Jardine's Lookout and the northern ridge.

On my first weekend at Parkview, I couldn't restist checking it out.   This is the view looking south from the trail to Parkview with Voilet Hill (435m) behind to the right.  















Looking south-east across the Tai Tam Valley
















Video Panorama:  panning from south-east, to south to south-west.


Looking south-south-west across Deepwater Bay with Lamma Island in the distance.















Looking west across Happy Vally towards The Peak.  You can clearly see the road down from Wong Nai Chung Gap (left) down into Central (right). 















The view west from Jardine's lookout at 433m.   Happy Valley racecourse stadium is in the foreground behind a cluster of towerblocks.  The tall bulding by the harbour is the 88 story, 415m high International Financial Center (IFC) in Central.















Looking North across Causeway Bay and North Point to the harbour and Hung Hom on the Kowloon Side.


Close-up looking north-west to the ICC at West Kowloon.  At 483m high and 108 stories, the ICC is actually 50m higher than Jardine's lookout.















Panorama:  from Jardine's lookout panning from west to north

Also starting near Parkview, and down from the Wilson trail  is another quieter trail that follows a water-race along the contour of Jardine's Lookout past some old WW2 pillboxes.
















And some other ruined buildings.





Hong Kong Parkview

On 27th of March I moved from Chi to an apartment in Hong Kong Parkview.  The idea is to be closer to Hannah's pre-school and to shorten their school-run, albeit at the expense of a longer commute for me.


Parkview is a private housing estate built in the 1980s high up in the Tai Tam Country Park, just east of the Won Nai Chung Gap, the pass dividing northern and southern parts of Hong Kong Island.




This is the view from the top of our block looking north-west accross the gap to Happy Valley and central Hong Kong.


Parkview consists of 18 tower blocks, with a central podium area with gardens, tennis courts and swimming pools, as well as a sports club, playgrounds, restaurants and a supermarket.



The view from our apartment looking south across the podium. 
It is all rather posh
The main club-house showcases the owners impressive and eccentric art collection with paintings and sculptures by Miro, Dali, Margrite, and an impressive collection of classical and contemporary Chinese Art,  including C5th buddhist sculpture and landscape drawings from various eras.

    
As well as the Taj Mahal and Eiffel Tower made out of lego (with the a lego millenium falcon hanging behind).


The supermarket is also very posh with a wide choice of familiar brand-names from around the world.  For example various Waitrose stables imported form the UK at 2-3 times the price.  Similarly Australian  yoghurt and New Zealand mushrooms and honey.    And live fish


Our flat is pretty comfortable.  I hope Rika and Hannah enjoy it.
Hannah was happy to have a bath again after 1 month of showers.

















Ahhh. Back in civilisation again!

And finally some more Objects D'Art from the Parkview collection