jeepers creepers #3

It’s that time of year again! In the run-up to Chinese New Year, I can count on enjoying once again what I regard as Hong Kong’s most spectacular floral display: the firecracker vine. In Jeepers Creepers #2, which I posted last year, I mentioned that this astonishing outburst of colour was more than a week early, coinciding with an early date for the start of the new year. This year, however, Chinese New Year is almost as late as is possible, and as if in response, the firecracker vines have been much later than usual. In fact, almost all the photos in this report were taken in the past week.

The first three photos were taken this morning in the village of Siu Hang, which lies on the opposite side of the Ng Tung River to the village where I live. This vine borders a car park, and this is what it looks like from the entrance to the car park:

…while this is a view from the other end:

…and this provides a closer look at the right-hand end:

The next example is in the grounds of a small religious site, which I think is a nunnery, that we pass when cycling along the river on our way out west:

…and this is a view of the same vine eleven days later:

Some improvement!

I took the next photo last Tuesday in the village of Yau Tam Mei, which we ride through on our circuit of the Tam Mei valley:

This isn’t the original route that we used to take around the valley, and I must have developed this alternative since this time last year, because I don’t recall seeing this firecracker vine before.

Incidentally, if you look closely at the photo, there is an alleyway next to the lamp-post, which was part of the route that I worked out last year. Unfortunately, on Tuesday I followed the alleyway as usual after taking the photo but was eventually confronted by a fence across the path! This is a recurring problem on off-road segments and is probably illegal, but I shall just have to find an alternative.

The next two photos are of a vine next to the minibus terminus in Yau Tam Mei. As with the previous example, I wasn’t coming this way a year ago, so this is the first I knew of the existence of this firecracker vine too:

When I took the first of these photos, a gas delivery truck was blocking part of the vine, but because I was searching for an alternative to the blocked alleyway, I came this way again and took the second photo.

The next vine, also in the Tam Mei valley, was featured in last year’s collection—with the lament that it is impossible to get a good photo when pointing towards the sun. That was still the case on Tuesday, but this is what the vine looks like on the opposite side:

The mystery here is how I didn’t spot this vine as I was riding along, give that the photo was taken in the direction I was riding. My interpretation? I did spot the vine but didn’t realize at the time that photographing the other side, which meant shooting towards the sun, would produce such a crap photo. The result of this year’s attempt was even worse!

The next vine, also photographed last Tuesday, is located in an alleyway opposite a rather primitive mural that I featured in Wall to Wall last October but hadn’t ridden past since. I took two photos, one from each end of the vine:

Whenever we cycle out west nowadays, once we reach the Shek Sheung River on the outskirts of Sheung Shui on our return, we then take a detour around the network of narrow roads south of the large village of Hang Tau, and on Tuesday I spotted a firecracker vine that I hadn’t seen before in the entrance to a side road that leads nowhere (I’ve checked). Unlike most examples of this vine, which appear to be kept in check by regular pruning, this one has been allowed to go wild:

Having cycled as far west as Tam Mei then around the Hang Tau detour, I began to think that if I made an effort, I could clock 100km for the day’s ride. I was still about 18km short, and the only way I could hit the century mark would be to cycle east. I had only a vague idea of where to go to knock off the distance, but to cut a long story short, I found myself in a maze of alleyways in a village some distance east of Fanling when I spotted a firecracker vine down one of these alleys:

When I investigated more closely, I found that I could take additional photos, all of which were of vines that enclosed the same small estate:

By the way, I did manage to clock 100.5km for the day’s ride.

I included two photos taken in my home village in Jeepers Creepers #2. This is a photo of my neighbour’s firecracker vine, viewed from the inside:

…and this is a shot of Mr Lee’s garden, taken from the village car park:

I posted a photo in Jeepers Creepers #2 that I annotated with the following comment:

‘Paula rode past without noticing it’.

Of course, I stopped to take a photo, but the hill is quite rough, so I can understand why her focus was elsewhere.

There is a path that emerges onto this hill to the left of the photo that I finally got around to checking out a couple of months ago. We now cycle along it regularly, which has given me the opportunity to see what this firecracker vine looks like from the other side:

Although I’m familiar with all the alleyways within walking distance of our house, there are many that I rarely venture down because they don’t lead anywhere useful. However, on Boxing Day last year, I did ride down one alleyway that turned out to be lined on one side by a firecracker vine. There were just a few flowers, but on Friday I decided to check it again. This was the result:

Finally, in January last year, we were shooting the ‘outer limits: path #3’ video, and it was only when I watched the video later that I noticed a most spectacular example of a firecracker vine that had gone wild down a road to the left (I was focusing on the road ahead):

Naturally, I wanted a photograph, so we cycled there yesterday for the first time since shooting the video. This was the result:

Incidentally, given that this vine is located almost 40km from our house, we set off with the express intention of breaking the ‘century barrier’. We eventually clocked 104km, although it did take eight hours.

*  *  *

It would appear that in order to obtain a uniform flower density, it is necessary to do some judicious pruning from time to time, and the intensity of the display does vary from year to year. To illustrate this point, I also took photos yesterday of two firecracker vines that I featured in Jeepers Creepers #2 last year. The first is located in the village of Shui Mei, about 35km west of Fanling, and the second borders a narrow path that leads away from the village:

If you compare these photos with last year’s, you will see that this year’s display is more impressive.

other posts in this series
Jeepers Creepers
Jeepers Creepers #2
Jeepers Creepers #4: Part 1
Jeepers Creepers #4: Part 2