Ng Tung Chai Waterfalls Hike!

Okay I have to reach really far back for this one.  It took place last Saturday, April 16th, just before the Beijing trip.  Well it began with me, on the morning of, Stumblin' while I should have been figuring out the directions.  The meeting time was at 11am, so at 11am I started to look up directions on travel blogs and stuff and I finally composed something that looked legit.  I packed, got ready, and headed on downstairs to find nobody waiting for me, so I just sat.  It was only a group of four of us, but everyone of them needed to eat something or get money out of the ATM. Luckily I'm patient, but we all had stuff to do the same day, so we finally got to moving.  The route we took is:

• East Rail Line towards Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau.
• Get off at the Tai Po market station
• Take bus 64K to Pak Ngau Skek
• Then start walking up the road, towards the next stop. You should see a sign that points you towards the falls.

We started out on a paved road which was nice, although some of us were huffin' and puffin' a bit. Once we started on the actual trail we found that the steps were a lot more "rugged" than the blogs implied.  These were rocks stacked on top of each other to form something resembling stairs.  Many times they seemed to go straight up.  But you have to go up to see any water falls.

The falls are divided into 4 different and separate waterfalls.  The first three are: bottom, middle, and main, aptly named.  The last was Scatter falls, which was inaccessible due to a semi recent landslide.  No worries though, it hadn't rained for a while.  We actually skipped the bottom fall on the way up since it seemed like a lot of people were down there, and because we didn't think it was going to be that great.  During our hike towards the middle fall, the reality of packing too light began to set in.  We had no idea it was going to be this rough, we each had one water bottle and no snacks or anything to eat.  By the time we got to the middle falls, everybody was sharing from my water bottle which boasts a 1000ml volume. OH YEAH. The middle falls are probably my favorite.  There is some really interesting moss growing next to it with water trickling down it.  The waterfall itself wasn't very impressive, however, it was very serene, and with a little bit of rain, it could ha

Beware of Flash Floods

ve been much more powerful.  Also, in the water, there was a bunch of crayfish looking things with very long, skinny pinchers.  I tried to catch a few but they are a lot faster than the ones back home.  We rested here for a while and enjoyed the scenery.  After about twenty minutes it was on to the main fall.

We were determined to make it, even on minimal supplies.  This whole hike was basically a trek through jungle, it didn't look anything like Hong Kong, or anything I'd ever seen for that matter.  It was really interesting to see all the



 different animals and wildlife in Hong Kong. We're still not even halfway there when we happen upon a clearing.  Usually it is nice to find a place to rest, but this area offered a great view of the main fall, the bad part was how far away it still seemed.  We stayed here for a while, bitter, sad, and tired.  The whole hike was virtually a never ending staircase.  Once we composed ourselves, and prepared for the worse   we set out to finish what we started.



The main fall was really tall, and don't worry, we actually made it there a lot faster than I thought.  The fall was maybe 15 stories high.  There was a pond at the bottom but it wasn't deep enough to swim, usually people do swim here but there hadn't been much rain lately.  There was plenty of boulders to jump on and further explore downstream.  This worked for a while until I came to a huge drop, I already had a few slips, since my pumas aren't exactly hiking shoes, so I ended up turning back before long.  We took plenty of pictures of the falls and what not. We didn't realize that we would also have to walk back, which lead us to leaving a bit early to get back. 



I'm about out of water now and we are all dragging behind big time.  But, fortunately for us, it was mostly downhill.  The hike back was easier so we stopped at the bottom fall, which ended up being better than expected.  It seemed more likelier that people could swim at this one, than any others, which I would have, but we had to go.  We sat at the bus stop for 10 minutes with people we met on the trail and chatted them up for a bit 'till the bus arrived.  We all fell asleep on the bus and basically, didn't speak the whole time.







Good times.