a grand day out #3

Until the weekend before last, I hadn’t done any cycling since November following a freak accident in which I sustained a hairline fracture of a bone in my wrist. Paula had also forgone cycling during this period, so, naturally, we didn't want to do anything too ambitious after such an extended lay-off. We settled for a ride out west as far as the western end of San Tin Tsuen Road. In other words, a straightforward out-and-back ride in which we clocked 42km.

During the week, I went out by myself to the same turnaround point, and by including a few detours on the way back, including ‘on the money’, ‘oriental garden’ and ‘farmland fandango’, I was able to notch up 51km.

On Saturday, we wanted to go further west, but there was just one small problem. At the end of San Tin Tsuen Road, it’s necessary to cross Castle Peak Road, which carries a lot of traffic, and bump up the kerb on the far side of the road to join the Sheung Shui to Yuen Long cycle track, and my wrist was still rather sore. I did think about pushing my bike across the road, but in the event I made the crossing in the usual way—and didn’t feel any discomfort.

We always stop at a so-called ‘rest station’ shortly after joining the cycle track, and while there I happened to notice some flowers of a kind that I didn’t think I’d seen before, so naturally I took a photo:

It’s just a sapling at the moment, but if it becomes a fully fledged tree, I think that it will look pretty spectacular.

Just before the cycle track crosses San Tam Road, I couldn’t help but notice a strange graffito on the abutment of the bridge carrying the expressway across the road:

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, it was a foretaste of what we were to discover in the Yuen Long area.

Incidentally, this is where we depart from the cycle track, the next section of which is very disjointed. Nowadays, we follow San Tam Road as far as the entrance to the Tam Mei valley. This road does carry some high-speed traffic, but it’s wide enough that any overtaking vehicles can give a cyclist plenty of room.

I did notice some graffiti as we crossed the Kam Tin River via the Hung Mo Bridge, but we didn’t stop. However, we did stop at the exit from a tunnel under the expressway at the start of ‘the hospital path’ so that I could take this photo:

The hospital path exits onto the main cycle track, which we followed eastwards to the point where it’s possible to turn right (the main cycle track goes straight on). And after passing under Castle Peak Road, there is a three-way junction in the cycle tracks here.

This is a view of the exit we were about to follow:

…and this graffito is on the left-hand side of the exit to the right:

I could see more graffiti through the tunnel:

…so I wanted to take a closer look:

This is a selection of the graffiti on the walls on both sides here:

The next photo shows the only graffiti in this area that is reminiscent of a style that I’ve seen in Fanling (see Scrawl on the Wall):

I’ve included the next photo to show the cycle track here. We would have come down this hill after a ride around the area known as Shap Pat Heung (‘eighteen villages’), which includes some of the most exciting paths in the Yuen Long area, but in the interests of rehabilitation, we had planned to restrict the ride to a basic out-and-back journey until we had built up our fitness after such a long lay-off:

And so we continued. But there was more graffiti on the far side of the underpass:

This is a closer look at the graffiti on the left:

…and on the right:

Incidentally, we don’t follow the cycle track here, although we could to reach our next stopping point, a convenient bus shelter in the village of Shui Mei. We head off to the right. There is neither pavement nor cycle track here, but there is a convenient gap behind the crash barrier alongside the main road, which we follow for about 100 metres before reaching another cycle track. Just before it crosses Hung Mo Bridge, there is a flight of steps down which we can bump our bikes to reach Ko Po Road, which runs alongside the river. We often see dozens of wildlife photographers here—I’ve shot some interesting videos here—but on this occasion there were none, because the tide was too high, so there were no birds to be seen.

There is a really strange cotton tree (Bombax ceiba) behind the bus shelter in Shui Mei. These trees usually have trunks that are dead straight, like conifers (A Blaze of Glory), but this one is grossly misshapen:

I took several photos of the tree from different angles. This one taken from the bridge across the stream to the left suggests that the main trunk was cut at some point in the past, which encouraged random growth in all directions:

This view is from the right:

And so is this:

The ‘mess on the ground’ is developing rather nicely!

Under normal circumstances, we would do ‘the original path’ and the five ‘outer limits’ paths before heading home, but we didn’t want to overdo things, so from this point we set off on our homeward journey. However, there are two large ponds at the north end of Shui Mei, and as we reached the first one, we could see an impressive display of bougainvillea on the far side across the water. I often photograph this plant, and we’d already seen quite a few examples that we didn’t stop for, but we simply had to get photos of this display. This is the view from the left-hand end, where the road we would be following next crosses a small stream:

This view shows more of the display to the right:

…and further right still:

…while this is a view looking back to the left:

Notice that the stream is completely choked with water hyacinths, although on this occasion there were no flowers—I will be checking this out on future rides.

I took this final photo as much to illustrate how completely the water hyacinths have choked the stream as to show the bougainvillea:

There are also a few morning glory flowers at the bottom of the photo.

Although I didn’t take a photo across the ponds when we first saw the bougainvillea, I did take a photo looking back, which I’ve included because I think it’s quite scenic:

After this stop, we headed back home by the shortest route, apart from a detour through ‘oriental garden’, followed by a stop in a pleasant park on Fan Leng Lau Road in Fanling, where I could enjoy a McDonald’s double Angus burger and fries. The customary cold beers once we got home were a fitting reward for having clocked 62.7km on the day’s ride. Although my wrist still feels sore, it is getting better.