A Rare Tuesday

On December 29th, a Tuesday, we realized we had not taken a P-day (normally on Saturdays) in about 6 weeks. To maintain our sanity, we planned a day off. What do you do to maintain balance when you're mentally and emotionally exhausted? We thought a day of physical exercise would do nicely. As you'll see later, that decision might have come from some pretty frazzled brain cells.

Via MTR (subway), we spent an hour getting to Lantau Island. We then used our passes to take a 20 minute gondola ride up and over some gorgeous scenery to the "Big Buddha." From there, we hiked the "Lantau Peak Trail." Strangely enough, even with a name like that we didn't realize that it was actually a hike to the "peak." With our depleted brain cells, we looked at a map and because it was flat on the map, we decided it would be a good walk.

What we discovered, however, was a steep climb to a 3,064 ft. peak. The "Trail" was actually a long staircase made of stones arranged on top of each other. But these stones were not placed like a normal staircase--the step up from one stone to the next was almost knee-high for Laraine. It turned out to be a grueling, yet exhilarating climb up and a brutal descent down. For days afterward, we have been unable to walk like normal human beings, especially up/down stairs.

Here are pictures of our day:

Scene from part-way up

"Big Buddha" seated in the distance. He looks so small . . 

Taking a breather

An 80-year-old man coming down the path behind us as we went up. He does the hike once each week. Our HERO!

More scenery on the way up.

A view of the peak as we got to the top ridge line.

At top of the ridge, discovered some tiny men had climbed on top of my head to hitch a ride. 

Sister Chamberlain on top of the ridge

 . . . and we thought we were done.  Not quite . . . 

The ridge line was longer than we thought . . . more climbing

Sister Chamberlain coming up the final few minutes to the peak.

Guess what? This STILL isn't the top!  There's another rise. 

Still more climbing . . . 

A view of the Big Buddha from higher up (towards the left)

The peak is in sight.

Made it!!

Made it too!

View of Tung Chung city from the peak

Looking back the way we came

More views from the top. This is a reservoir next to the ocean. There is a prison at the base of the dam, on the beach.

Are we having fun yet? 

Congratulations are in order . . .

What?? We have to go DOWN? But we're going to go down the other side, which is actually an UP/DOWN---UP/DOWN affair. 

That's the peak and trail down from it on the other side.

Sitting on a rock, waiting for motivation

4 hours later, we met this cow at the bottom of the trail. Lantau has many wild cattle.