Weekend Biking - Sunday - Hills of Death...　殺の山

OK, I'll admit something - the main reason I decided to still go biking up to Taipo late on Saturday Night was actually to get my bike in position for Sunday's ambitious ride...

日曜日午後もう一度ＮＴで自転車乗った。今回とても壮図だった、 粉嶺(ファンリング)と深圳(シンゼン)の間の山の上の通りを登った。オンライン地図サイトで直りました。

I read online about a small concrete path along the ridge of the mountains that separate Fanling from Man Kam To...  It offers views of Fanling and Shenzhen across the border....

Well I checked some online mapping sites and found the path they mentioned,  while doing that I found out they now have topographical maps for HK on google maps now too!

Just what I need!  Here's the path -

They said it was steep but the views were worth it...  一寸乗り難いみたい！

ok,  how hard could it be?  REALLY HARD, thats how hard... 　実は本当乗り難かった！

the really hard part is labeled... :-P    http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2096303

So was it worth it?  Actually it was!   Check out some of my pics -

難けど、本当張り合かった！写真を見て下さい：

I rode from Taipo to Fanling and then to Ping Che, busted out the map i printed from centamap's map and tried to triangulate the proper path... I followed some random side streets full of scrap yards and truck repair shops til I found a random concrete path going up a hill...  no signage at ALL...   一寸見つけ難かった、看板全然なかった。

I quickly realized that this was the right way... and that it was frickin STEEP!

There was this random abandon guardhouse on the way up... it looked like 100 years old.   I'm not sure exactly why they needed a guardhouse... but we are close to the 'Closed Border Zone'...  you can kind of see the angle of the road compared to the verticle walls of the booth though to get an idea how steep it was here... and this wasn't even the worst of it.

I made it about 50% of the way up and finally gave up and walked the bike up the rest of the way... this would be a common theme this day... ride down, walk up... :-P

After the first crest of the hill I stopped to catch my breath and get a few photos:

Boy the scrap yards look much more peaceful from up here... (looking to the SE towards Ping Che)

There was some sort of surveyors marker here... (looking SW towards Leun Wo Hui). By the way,  that alivenotdead sticker was already there when i arrived, i SWEAR...

Note the weird stick with red flags on it... hmm, I wonder what that could possible be?  [read on to find out!]

By the way, all over the hills around here, there were things built way up on the hill sides...  can you guess what they are?  I guess everyone wants a room with a view. :-P

Oh yes, i forgot the other half - the North side of the hills -

At the base of the hill were some small towns (with humorous names like 下山雞乙 and 上山雞乙)...  but in the not so far distance you can see across the border to Shenzhen,  which as I've mentioned a few times here - is quite a big city, with a larger population than all of Hong Kong (and most of it is concentrated along the border, whereas the border area is the least populated part of Hong Kong (as you can see!)

A zoom shows the skyscrapers of Shenzhen... thats the Shun Hing Square's tower,  which, at 1260 ft (384m) is ALMOST as tall as HK's 2 IFC (at 1362ft / 415m) - making it the 9th tallest in the world right now --  ( click for a list of the tallest buildings in SZ)

I soldiered on,  this part was tough because it was pretty much just uphill, then flat, then uphill again...

On the 3rd or fourth peak, I stopped to catch my breath and used an old plastic stool that was left there as a camera stand for a self-portrait (w/ some of SZ in the background)... you can't see that I'm dripping in sweat and pretty exhausted.

About 2/3 of the way through the path makes a sharp right turn and looks down at this big open valley with a nicely manicured open, flat area surrounded by hills... what is this place?

Upon closer inspection I quickly guessed...

Its a frickin' firing range! and not just for pistols or rifles... let's look at those markings on the hill-side:

You can kind of see some bullseyes marked in white on the hill side... i'm guessing that's for something bigger than just a hand gun. :-O

Here's a panorama I stitched together from several photos:

Its about 150-180 degrees of the view.  Zoom to get it in full glory.. ;-)

I kept going...  to a site i hope I don't have to see again:

The firing range from the wrong end...

Well you can be sure I made sure it was empty before I got this far... but funny enough as I came up to this point I saw the VERY FIRST bit of signage on this path:

Its obviously a bit out of repair, but I could make enough out to tell what it said:

"DANGER: MINISTRY OF DEFENCE RANGE. KEEP OUT WHILE RED FLAGS ARE DISPLAYED"

ok... very confusing... first of all there hasn't been a "ministry of defenCe" for HK since 1997, right?  and regardless,  why hasn't anyone kept this sign in a readable condition?  the sign may be abandoned, but obviously the shooting range is still well maintained... :-?    no red flags here,  but then I remember way back at the first hill I passed that stick w/ the red flags ( remember?)

so either I'm about to be shot... or they forgot to remove the red flags...  :-P

Actually at this point the path got harder -

You can't really tell from the photo, but its supersteep downwards... too steep to ride down safely.  i had to inch down as slow as possible and keep the brakes clamped just enough to keep from flying down at deadly speed... but not so hard to lock the wheels and skid and fall on my head...  (all that lovely potential energy wasted!)

I used my Casio's 'sunset' setting to get a good sunset photo of SZ before the last hill:

actually this is cheating,  this camera setting puts a heavy orange tint on everything...the view wasn't quite this rosey,  but I didn't feel like waiting another hour on the hill top to get the real-deal...  (going down super steep slopes in daylight was bad, doing it in pitch black dark would be worse)

Some extra photos:

On my way to Ping Che i accidentally turned at the first traffic circle instead of the 2nd one,  as I came around that wall on the right I was surprised to see a PLA soldier holding a machine gun standing guard at the gate (PLA = People's Liberation Army, aka Mainland Chinese army)... I realized immediately that this was a Military barracks that was turned over from the British to the Chinese army...   oops!  

On the wall on this side I found the old British name of the barracks:

It says 'Gallipoli Lines'... very British...  I guess the PLA wanted to change the name (its now just called the San Wai Barracks)... but they left the old sign there for historic value.