chinese cobra

As the weather was too HOT to do any decent hike lately... D & I resorted to cycling to make up for the lack of exercise to maintain our fitness level. We had cycled a few times around Tung Chung area. Once I had a nasty fall as I was cycling down a slope, my cap was blown away by the strong wind, I tried to retrieve it with one of my hands, lost my balance and crashed! Need more work on my balancing....- _-
Yesterday, we cycled up a footpath parallel to Tung Chung Road, it was a tough ascend.. On the way back the same path, D sighted a cobra!! I was way ahead and had passed it without noticing it, Happy our dog was right behind me. I heard D shouting at the back, for a moment I thought he found some puppies (we were on the look out for puppies in this area for some days already). I backtracked and saw a black cobra !! For the first time in my life I saw a real life cobra! It was a black chinese cobra (venomous & dangerous). I have seen the harmless greater green snakes and green pit vipers (venomous, nasty but not fatal) on our hikes and two red-necked keelback (venomous & dangerous) at the main entrance of our previous house before. D was telling me to quickly leash Happy and to stay away from the cobra. He told me that earlier, he saw Happy ran over the cobra as the cobra was crossing the path. It went into it's attack stance...
The snake was history!! D felt bad! One justification is, the cobra is a deadly venomous snake and it poses a danger to unsuspecting passerby on this footpath... Thank God Happy was unharmed!!

P.S. It's Happy's birthday today! She is two years old already!

pok to yan

very steep drain path

The weather for the past one week wasn't really ideal for a hike. Initially, we wanted to hike last Thursday or Friday, but the unpredictable weather hindered us. This morning, after checking the weather, we decided to hike up Pok To Yan mountain with the highest peak at 529m. Pok To Yan means 'thin knife blade' in cantonese. As the name suggested, we would actually be hiking along the sharp ridges like the knife blade on the top of the mountain . This mountain has about five peaks, so it's going to be really tough! From what I've read on the internet, it is somewhat like the famous Dog's Teeth Ridges, though not as treacherous? (I have a photo of Dog's Teeth Ridges somewhere below in my previous posts.)

I was actually half-hearted about hiking this morning due to the forecasted weather. The temperature will reach 34 degrees celsius today, it was a whopping 34.6 degrees yesterday. Anyway, I thought we'll give it a try despite the hot weather. If it became too hot to bear, we'll backtracked. And that's what we did! hahaha...

We started at about 10am, which was abit late to begin with, by the time we were actually at the foot of the mountain, it was about 10.30am. Boy! The initial climb was steep! It was so steep that I had to stop at interval to catch my breath! It was an ascend of almost 60 degree gradient walking on the cement drain that led to an overgrown dirt path all the way up. Probably at 100-150m, the heat got the better of us. I were drained of almost 80 percent of my energy. We stopped for awhile to consider our odds of reaching the top in this heat. By looking at the 1st peak that loomed impressively infront of us and the merciless sweltering heat, we made the decision to abort the hike. Although we were disappointed, it was for our own good. Over-exertion in this heat is unwise, heatstroke is not an option! haha So, it's till next time, Pok To Yan!

Yat Tung Estate

Pok To Yan mountain

This is the other end of Pok To Yan Mountain, it is the part almost towards the end of the trek where we were supposed to descend on Por Kai San Mountain (next to it, not shown in pic) if our trip was successful.  This photo was taken on our North Dragon Stream (4th July 09) trek where the exit fron the stream is on Pok To Yan Mountain.