ignoble hill

Although I’m currently in the UK and won’t return to Hong Kong until October, I’ve been thinking about cycling projects to work on next winter. Probably the project with the greatest potential is the one I shall be calling ‘ignoble hill’.

Noble Hill is an upmarket housing estate on the northern side of Ma Sik Road, which marks the northern boundary of Fanling:

You can tell that it’s an upmarket estate by the height of the blocks—and by the grand entrance to the estate.

The other side of the road is considerably less salubrious. There is an extensive squatter area with several alleyways up and down the hill and other alleys that run horizontally across the hillside. The aim, as always with this kind of development, is to construct a circuit that takes in as many of these alleyways as possible. What follows is an account of the progress to date. I’d cycled through the area several years ago, turning off the dedicated cycle track that runs alongside the south side of Ma Sik Road to see what I could find.

I didn’t follow up this initial exploration because I had many other areas to explore, and ignoble hill isn’t on the way to anywhere else. However, at the beginning of April, the day before I was due to go to Nethersole Hospital for an operation, I was returning from the final frontier and decided that I wanted to extend the ride, which I did by following the cycle track that runs alongside Jockey Club Road.

On this occasion, I then followed a rough road that starts next to the temple on the corner of Ma Sik Road and Jockey Club Road. Where that road bends around to the right, I found an alleyway that leads back down the hill, and I couldn’t help but notice the admittedly primitive artwork painted on a couple of squatter houses:

I was unable to do any cycling for several weeks, so I decided to take a look around the area on foot. This is where any route that I establish through the area will start and finish:

The right turn is the way to go. It leads up a hill that is not especially arduous:

Although I’ve described this area as a squatter area, this does not imply that the houses here are slums, only that there are specific legal restrictions on buying and selling them. Not only do all the houses have piped water and mains electricity; each house also has its own postbox, which is in a central location:

I also followed the road that I described above as bending around to the right for a short distance. This road to the left looked to be worth checking out:

In fact, it’s a dead end for motor vehicles:

…although there is an alleyway starting in the corner next to the wrought iron gate:

By following this, I found myself on the path that eventually returns to the start/finish point in the photo above. However, before reaching this point, I came to the junction with a path that leads back into the built-up area:

I wanted to see whether this would be a better option:

And I did find what I was looking for:

I dare say that I could continue around the corner to the left, and the turn to the right does look to be quite tricky. But that’s the point of the exercise! Whatever ride through the area I eventually come up with, the more technically difficult twists and turns the better.