We did it! D & I completed the combi-trip today. We took NLB no.11 to Tai O, alighted at the bus terminal and walked across the bridge at the new promenade near the bus terminal. We passed through Nam Chung village & Fan Kwai Tong village and then it was concrete path by the coastline all the way until we reached Yi O beach. (This is part of the Lantau trail stage 7).
We tried to locate distance post L060, but none was in sight, for we needed to make a left halfway past this L060 post. We had no choice but to estimate the distance. Thank God, in the approximate vicinity, we managed to spot some ribbons (left by previous hikers) tied to the branches at the entrance of the path uphill. We gave it a shot. My gosh! This uphill climb wasn't easy for me, at some parts of the path, we had to bash through overgrown bushes and some even reached up to my head. All the spiders in Hongkong must have congregated on this path for their summer camp!! hahaha there were zillions of them! D had to do the men's thing and cleared the path for me! : ) Still, at one point a stray strand of spider web got into my mouth... yucks! I was thankful it wasn't the spiders though!! ;) By the time we emerged from this primary forest, I was pretty exhausted. This path led us to a pool/dam which they named Heaven's pool. We took some photos and continued our way up to Man Cheung Po main waterfall. The 70m high Man Cheung Po waterfall is beautiful. It is one of the nine most famous waterfall in the whole of Hongkong. After taking some photos, we took the forest path on the right of the waterfall up to Nose Mucous waterfall (I know..what a name, isn't it!). Oh my! The climb was really challenging, I had never climbed anything so steep and for such a long way up before... I almost had a cramp in my right calf. We took a short break at the Nose Mucous waterfall, had some snacks... and it was back to more climbing again! After reaching the Nose Mucous waterfall, I thought there will be minimal steep climbing for the rest of the journey, but on the contrary, we had to climb up the forest path on the right side of the waterfall and then continued climbing up to the peak of a pyramid hill (located right after Nose Mucous waterfall) just to get to the exit of this stream. Thank God the weather was good during this period of climb.
At the top of this pyramid hill, we hit the footpath that led us to Man Cheung Po campsite. After passing by the campsite, we visited Lung Tsai Ng Yuen. It's a hit or miss with this place, sometimes it is open, sometimes it's not. You get to go in if the caretaker is there cleaning up the place, if it's his day-off... too bad! ;) We managed to go in and had a quick look around and took some photos of the place. Frankly, the place is pretty rundown and the bridge is being barred for safety reasons. What a pity for such a beautiful place! After awhile, we left this sad place and went back to Tai O for some iced milk tea and yummy sandwiches. It perked us up alright. The whole journey took us about 4 hours excluding the bus ride both ways. Overall, it was a good and challenging trip, more so than expected. I really worked those 'muscles'! Also, just a note, we weren't tempted to take a dip in the pool at all ..... the water was not as clean as what we were accustomed to... (we were being pampered by the unpolluted water from the five dragon streams), so we didn't have the desire to go into the pool.
Warning: The last part of the journey down to Tai O ( after Lung Tsai Ng Yuen) entailed a really steep and never-ending descent, please wear your kneeguard, you might just need it! hahaha
scenery below heaven's pool
heaven's pool
Man Cheung Po waterfall
Man Cheung Po waterfall
Nose Mucous waterfall
an unknown waterfall
an unknown pool behind the pyramidal hill
beautiful scenery from the top of pyramidal hill
Lung Tsai Ng Yuen
