Hong Kong: Kowloon Mega Walk

I mentioned in the Disney post that the girls are great about participating in my random mega walks while on holiday. They are usually not planned to be this way, actually they are often not really planned at all, then six hours later we are back where we started without really having a solid answer to the question "so where did you go" ..... This was one of those days. I actually did have a plan for this one but it morphed rather drastically once we got going. The plan was to show my mom Victoria Park, a neat area off the beaten path that sits atop a large steep hill with winding trails through the trees. I came across it on my previous trip to Kowloon over Christmas while on a random walk. Alicia opted out in favor of an afternoon relaxing in an establishment on Nathan St, the main thoroughfare in Kowloon. The girls, Nana and I began the walk in the general direction of the park but got sidetracked by an interesting garden just off of Nathan rode after passing by the large Mosque. The garden/park meandered on for a quite a ways and had all sorts of interesting things to walk around and look at. After this park I got my bearings and focused on getting to the other park. The girls soldiered on and Nana kept them hydrated with copious amounts of water from her perpetually somewhat full water bottle. And she had brought along her left over French toast from breakfast in a ziplock that they appreciated about 3 hours into the walk. After achieving the summit, we meandered back down to Nathan St, met Alicia and then continued on to the night market part of town.

This is at the very beginning of the walk while still back on HK island. Visible from our hotel room was a large tree covered parking flowing down the hillside. I went for a run thru it the previous evening and found it to be a lovely botanical garden with a free zoo incorporated into it. Before fueling up on breakfast for the walk, we took a warm-up walk thru the garden. The girls don't even ask any more - they figure the quicker they comply to my random poses with stuff like this, the sooner it will be over and they can be on their way.

Walkway underneath the roads winding it way down the hill to and thru the Botanical Gardens.

A spill way with flash flood warnings. It rains a lot here in the rainy season and because it is so hilly they need to be very aware of soil erosion, landslides and such so lots is done to try and control the water flow and its impact.

 Across the bay to Kowloon on the mainland of China but still part of HK. Emmerson providing scale for the mosque on Nathan St. The stairs next to it beckoned me up and into a park that was not on the original agenda - as is par for the course for the mega walks. Spent about an hour meandering about.

Mosque with the city in the backdrop.

Ada reading up on all the rules and reg's on how to properly enjoy the park. 

  

Big Chinese banyan tree.

Maze which I and the girls conquered.

Especially for Nana

And of course a McDonalds ... a really small McDonalds.

Roots of a banyan tree cascading down a wall.

Random groups of people enjoying the park - note the massive root structure in the background.

Super tired guy enjoying a nap under the banyan tree.

Coolest hat of the holiday time. No sun going to get this lady.....

No sun at all!

Large swimming pool in the park.

Finally made it out of tangent park and back on track. This is one of the walkways that winds its way up to the summit of the park that we were originally destined. Girls had just refueled with Nana's leftover french toast.

Another water/erosion precaution. All the silver looking things are metal plates driven into the mesh covering to hold it in place while vegetation grows. Difficult to get a sense of how steep this is here  - double black diamond run ...

Park summit.

The aspect the girls were most excited about - the pups at the park. Ada commandeered the camera and snapped these. No dogs allowed in the park but bot times we've been - plenty of them. But a park rules and reg lady did appear and shooed the offending parties away. 

Any guesses??? The girls know!