Hiking - Grassy Hill

The weather during Chinese New Year was excellent, so we went hiking again.   Hannah readily agreed to another trip on the same terms as before.  

The plan was to complete section 7 of the MacLehose Trail, resuming from where we exited last time, climb Grassy Hill (647m),  and walk out via Lead Mine Pass to Tai Po Road just behind Hannah's school.

To make it a bit easier, we took a taxi  to Wong Chuck Yuen village (about 200m up).  We arrived at 9:30am, just as the residents were letting off new-year fire-crackers, which rather surprised me.  In the interests of public safety Hong Kong has banned the use of real fire-crackers, along with the use of real lions in lion dances.

Photo above:  Fom our apartment looking south towards the Grassy Hill ridge in the far distance (summit is out of sight to the right).  Wong Chuck Yuen village is the white dots up the left-hand-side valley, about the same height as the top of the tower blocks.  The MacLehose runs along the far ridge and we join it via a trail up the ridge to the left of the village.

New Year fire-crackers at Wong Chuck Yueng

Video:  fire-crackers

Steps up from Wong Chuck Yuen to the main ridge and MacLehose Trail.  This was a bit tough with Hannah on my back, but we were on the ridge by 10:00am.

The approach to Grassy Hill was a pleasant walk up a forestry road, mainly in the shade, with nice views over the valley.

Looking east to Fo Tan and Royal Ascot from the approach to Grassy Hill.  a hill fire occurred around her a few days later (see below)

Looking south to the Sing Mun reservoir and Needle Hill

We reached the summit of Grassy Hill at around 11:am, and had a very pleasant lunch for 30min enjoying the view.

Looking north to Tai Po from summit of Grassy Hill (647m)

Selfie on Grassy Hill

Fo Tan from Grassy Hill

Video:   Grassy Hill view 1.  Panning from Tai Po town in the north, west to Tai Mo Shan then south.

Video:  Grassy Hill view 2:   panning north, east and south

After lunch we descended the steep path to Lead Mine Pass (around 400m).   Hannah cheerfully walked down the steps with me hand-in-hand for safety.  We arrived at the pass about 12:15m, and followed the exit route out to the north along the forest road through the Tai Po Kau nature reserve for about 6km.

Hannah was a bit bored by the forest trail and didn't want to do her share of walking down the hill.   We had a small argument during which I promised to put this photo on the blog, but our mood improved again when we met a monkey eating berries by the side of the road.

Hannah's school is nearby and she told me that the children are forbidden from eating outside in case this attracts monkeys who might mug the kids for their lunches!

We reached at the Tai Po Road around 2pm, and got a bus back home.   In total about 4.5hrs.  

Postscript:   Hill Fires

From the top of Grassy Hill we could see a hill fire burning in the hills on the other side of Tai Po.  I pointed it out to Hannah and we talked about fires.

It turned out there had been a hill fire had been burning for 2 days which took 130 firefighters to put out (scmp link).

Then on Tuesday night around 12:30am looking out from our apartment, saw a hill fire burning near Grassy Hill.   To me it looked like the flames were about 20ft high and burning on a front of about 100m.

Hill Fire on Grassy Hill , 3-Feb.

I called 999 just in case none had already reported it (they had).

The next morning the hill was covered in fog.  I couldn't find any report of this fire on the web.