The Eight Immortals

Pat Sin Leng Country Park is a mountain ridge which sits in the north eastern part of the New Territories.  It's not as far north as up around Plover Cove, but it's not too far away.  It was once considered to be a far off wilderness, but the last few decades have seen significant development and growth closer to the water in areas like Tai Po and Shatin, so it all now feels much closer to civilisation.

The ridge itself is famous for having eight peaks along the ridge, and so the name translates to the "Eight Immortals".  These legendary beings from Chinese mythology were each represented by one of the peaks along the ridge of Pat Sing Leng.

We started off our hike in one of the small villages in the middle of the New Territories. Every time we come out to places like this, we are reminded of how rural the whole area must have once been.  Even now, it's quite amazing that with the metropolis that is Hong Kong just a short drive away, that such lush greenery and scenes of simple farming life could still exist.

As walked further up through the hills, we were given an even more incredible sight.  It was probably the clearest day I have ever experienced on any hike in Hong Kong.  The visibility was completely unobstructed and we could see clear into China.  It was a strange sight to see, the more rural and green parts of Hong Kong, with the background of the enormous and modern city of Shenzhen.  None of this would have been there only a short twenty years ago.

As we walked further, we found ourselves above the tree line, walking through open landscapes of rock and grass.  It was a beautiful scene.  The air was fresh and the sky was perfectly blue.  Temperatures were low too so the whole experience was perfect for hiking.

We hadn't arrived yet at the actual "Eight Immortals", but the views we were getting were already incredible.  Walking along the top of the ridge, we could see towards the ocean as well as back over towards the middle of the New Territories.

Every section along the walk provides almost completely unobstructed views.  It had taken me a long time to get here and I was glad I had finally made it.  Eamon mentioned that this was still one of the best hikes he had ever done in Hong Kong and he had hiked most, if not all, of Hong Kong's official trails.

Finally we arrived at the actual "Eight Immotals".  Turning around, we could see back along the ridge we had just hiked.  It was impressive to look at.  The high ridge line seemed almost sharp against the sky.

In front of us there were these eight peaks we had to complete to finish our hike.  From a pure distance point of view, it didn't seem to bad at all.  We had completed most of the hike already so this was actually just the final third or so.

Though short, it was a bit harder than I expected.

Given the distance we had already travelled, the next eight and frequent ups and downs put quite a bit of strain on the calves and the glutes.  None of the little ascents and descents were particularly tough, but doing them so quickly one after another turned this into a strange form of interval training.

As always, we were going at a quick pace and so we passed by group after group of people who were taking a more leisurely stroll along the ridge, stopping at each spot for far longer than us to enjoy the views they saw.

Not for us though.  We continued on.  It was certainly worth it as well.  Even though we were truly spent by the end of the hike, it had been everything promised and given some of the best views I have seen in Hong Kong.