lots o’ lotus

I often invoke the old Cumbrian saying: ‘Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight; red sky at morning, shepherd’s warning’, which is why Paula took this photo from our balcony last Friday, before I got up:

We went out cycling later anyway, as planned.

Although a new cycle track between Sheung Shui, in the north central New Territories, and Yuen Long, in the west, was opened last September, we follow just a few sections, mainly because despite extravagant praise in the local press, it is poorly designed and is a pain in the arse (literally) to ride.

In particular, we always follow San Tin Tsuen Road (see map), which loops around the north and west of the historic village of San Tin. It is exceptionally scenic, it’s flat, and it carries almost no motor traffic, so it’s an extremely relaxing segment to cycle along, unlike the bike track, which runs alongside the busy traffic artery of Castle Peak Road.

There is a small stream that runs alongside the most westerly section of this road, and although I didn’t stop last Monday when I cycled past, I did happen to notice that there had been quite a proliferation of lotus leaves in the part of the stream marked by the red circle on the map. However, I wasn’t prepared for the transformation that greeted our eyes as Paula and I cycled past on Friday. This is a general view of the location, which I took using my GoPro video camera:

There doesn’t appear to be much to get excited about, but Paula took several photos, and you can see immediately what attracted our attention:

These flowers are around 15cm across!

I came this way by myself yesterday, and I shot a short video to illustrate that this location has also attracted the attention of other people. This is a still from that video:

Incidentally, the ‘red sky at morning’ warning on Friday was prescient. Having experienced light rain on and off as we cycled west, we were forced to take shelter from much heavier rain on three separate occasions in the Yuen Long area. It did brighten up in the afternoon though.