Belated Biking Catchup 2 - Lost in the Mangroves

As I mentioned in my last biking blog,  at the end of February, I rode over from the East side of HK's New Territories over to the West side. 

This time I got ambitious,  I didn't want to just turn around and ride back across to Sheung Shui like I had done in the past.  I thought I'd better try to explore a bit more of the Western NT, so I thought I'd try to ride along the coast a bit.  My travel path got a bit convoluted, but it came out something like this:

I added a few labels to make it clear.    The route map can be seen here:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2703530

Total was about 15 miles! (mostly because of the backtracking and getting lost).  :-P

Let's zoom in to the map a bit:

according to this version of google maps, apparently I am able to walk (or bike) on water.  But in reality there is a LOT of filled in bay littoral swamp areas that are quite passable.

let's compare the above with the satellite version:

yes, not only is there solid land there,  there's even a fence to keep those dastardly smugglers (and/or illegal immigrants) from sneaking in....  but rather than describe it with text and sattelite maps only...

here's the trip in picture form:

this is still well away from the coast,  there's a lot of waterways criss-crossing through this area w/ lots of water fowl in them... quite nice.

here's some birds flying away....

as you get closer to the coast (which is really the mouth of the Shenzhen River), you can see Mainland China off on the far bank....

note to self - the sign may have a good point,  i should think twice about driving my car off a cliff straight into the water.... maybe. :-P

So at some point the 'real' terrain changes into what can best be described as a series of interconnected ponds (and/or swamps):

gee,  google maps makes it look quite easy to ride through,  just follow those nice clear, smooth paths... 

well after a good 15 minutes of struggling,  I made it out...

in most places in HK you're never very far from civilization... in this case this rough, rock strewn, pothole filled narrow path between two swamps is just a quarter mile or so from some high rise apartments.

But alas I had reached pavement:

as well as a nice high barbed wire fence!  Yes this is the border fence,  meant to keep illegal aliens and smugglers from making it into HK.  It was pretty empty here...  just a few security cameras every few hundred yards.

The view on the China side was not too great... just a fence, but the view on the 'inland side'  was not too bad at points:

there were a bunch of ducks down there too believe it or not.

After a while I got to the end of the border fence area and to a real road with cars...

or in this case bikes.. there were actually two different caravans hanging out at this rest area,  one was motorcycles and the other one was scooters...  i left lame on my bicycle... but then again i was getting exercise,  my leg muscles will put these guys to shame. :-P

the road was still pretty up here though...   off to the side I saw this:

I tend to see a LOT of scruffy, semi-ferral dogs on my biking trips, don't I?

although they don't look at all similar, i think the big dog was the mother,  as she was guarding them defensively...

"don't come over here bicycle boy!"

actually the one on the right reminds me of a Young Sherpa...

Speaking of animals found in the countyside.....

a few months back I happened to bike past a pig farm while in Man Kam To... at first I thought the sounds I was hearing was from some sort of rusty machinery in need of a lube job....  but eventually I realized I was hearing a chorus of hundreds, if not thousands of pigs squealing. 

Well this time when I heard it I was prepared.  Despite the stench, I stopped for a second to do a video:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFSUZO4851Y Truly the most disturbing sound ever heard...

Eventually I made it to some public transport:

I parked my bike here, and eventually made it back home (after a detour to SZ for a much needed massage).   I came back two weeks later.... which you'll have to wait til next time to read about.  :-P