More Biking... now including Mui Tsz Lam Road Biking

Who wants to go biking on Sunday afternoon?  Send me a message or leave a comment.  we're going to do something really simple.  We've got at least 4 confirmed.

I tried some new biking locations the last two weeks.  I realized there's a bus line from my new house in NP that goes directly to the Ma On Shan side of the Shatin District, so its actually only 20 minutes from home by bus.  (actually even faster than when I was living in Hung Hom on the Kowloon side).

I even found out there's a way to ride all the way up to the Tate's Cairn Tunnel. I could never figure out where the hell this name came from. Who is Tate,  what is a Cairn Tunnel,  why does Tate posses a Cairn Tunnel?  Anyway,  thanks to wikipedia at least I now know that "Tate's Cairn" is the English name for the mountain (大老山) that the tunnel goes through.   All toll bridges and tunnels in HK have a bus interchange located at the toll booth,  so you're able to get off and switch to other lines (or just get off).

It isn't THAT far up the hill side, so it wasn't that hard of a ride.  Shatin is on the other side of the valley there.

I went back two days later for something a little more adventurous.  I wasn't sure where I was going to head, but I looked around on google maps while on the bus out there.

I stopped to take a pic of the nice view of HK Island on the way up.  This is from the far side of the old airport runway.

I found a road that looked interesting.  On the way to Ma On Shan there's a small valley with a small river going down the middle.  On one side there's a road that leads up to a small village named Mui Tsz Lam (梅子林).  

It took me about 15 minuts to get there from the toll booth where I parked my bike.  The hard part was finding somewhere to buy a bottle of water.  I couldn't find any 7-11s or corner stores around here, so I had to settle for an over priced vending machine. :-P

Mui Tsz Lam Road itself is pretty non descript.  Its open to cars but there were very few,  just a few bicyclists and some hikers.

The higher up you go the scenery improves:

There's a small dam that crosses the river and the road continues around to the other side.  Thats Mui Tsz Lam Village in the back there.  I will go up there after I get to the end of Mui Tsz Lam road. ;-)

The road continues around the east side of the valley. There are some flash flood control works over here and a narrow path.  I parked my bike and walked a bit further to get a few photos.

My camera was having trouble getting the white balance right,  so I took a few too dark and a few too light.

I took this one to try to show some of the color in the hills...  i'm sure in the summer its all super green.

across the valley.

Back up the valley. 

I rode back up towards the village.  It not really much of a village actually. there was a really short, but steep path up to a few buildings.

thats pretty much it.  there was a public toilet for hikers to use, but it was under renovation. doh. :-P

Tomorrow's group biking trip  = go super easy on Grace...