``Here one experiences only the mountain tops and the sky.´´
This trail is part of the famous 100km MacLehose hiking trail, running east to west in the New Territories.
Ma On Shan, called Horse Saddle Mountain by the locals, is the second highest peak in the New Territories at 702 metres.
Our hike starts at sea level and takes us through lush green subtropical forest and dense exotic vegetation.
We visit an abandoned Hakka clan village with its ancestral graves. These farming ``guest people´´ settled in this area of Hong Kong about 300 years ago. The history is fascinating. In a city where housing is at a premium and most people live in small high-rise apartments, homes in the countryside sit abandoned.
When Murry MacLehose ,the then governor of the colonial administration, established the country parks system in the 1970s, a number of villages ended up inside the border of the Sai Kung Country Park. The village’s continued to plant their rice terraces, an age-old way of life that their sons and daughters wanted no part of. As the older villagers died off and their children moved away to urban areas , the villages fell into disrepair. The rice terraces disappeared beneath new overgrowth; the cows that pulled the plows were turned loose to the fend for themselves, and we today come across these animals as we walk the trail.
As we head uphill, our hike encounters low shrubland, colourful with wild azaleas and rhododendrons and the mighty Ma On Shan range rises imposingly above. Behind us a superb coastal panorama reveals the Sai Kung Peninsula .
From the saddle, with its rugged rock formations, our hike rewards us with stunning views of the New Terrritories and mainland China.
Our path takes us along the remote, wild and windswept ridge, down to a rolling plateau. From here we lose any sight of the lowlands and the brown grassed hillsides are dominated by the distinctive steep-sided Pyramid Hill at 536 metres.
A scenic track winds downwards to our destination, the charming fishing town of Sai Kung, where we can watch the fisher folk selling their wares from the Sai Kung jetty, and visit the local Tin Hau temple, dedicated to our goddess of the sea.
Cost: HK$750.00 per person Total tour time 7 hours Walking distance: 10km Grade: strenuous Facilities: Toilets en route
Starting point: Exit C Choi Hung MTR. Let us know where you are staying and we will send directions for getting here.
Refreshments/lunch: you will need to bring your own packed lunch for this. There is a bakery in Sai Kung near the start of the walk, if needed. There is nothing available once at or on the trail.
