Just a cute stream within a really long route, exposed path, some loose rocks, coasteering, bush. For the most hardcore I want to see them all.

See full screen & the Garmin track.

I had this stream in my to do list for years. I had seen it when I was planning our Devil’s Fist outing. Colin had told me that it was a cute one too. October 2024, no buddy was sure about their availability that weekend, good timing for me to do a long one on my own.

Early wake up and long commute to Tai Mei Tuk. Bathroom, get all the gear ready and running time.

The goal was to avoid part of the forecasted heat. Heavy backpack with 4L of water, filter, food, extra shoes as I was not sure of the terrain, rope, pruners, my personal beacon and other emergency items. You start on flattish concrete for a long while

and later move to a dirt path with tons of ups (quite some stairs) and downs (partly with loose pebbles where the NB lugs were very welcome).

Checking information previous to the outing I had found that this group had done the route. In their map I saw that they had gone down to the coastline further East than what I would have expected. I knew the route we have done on the way to Devil’s Fist & I could see on Openstreetmaps a couple of paths to avoid our wet crossing. I decided to give their way a try. Atop (1 on the map) I could find a solitaire ribbon exactly where I would expect their downhill to start, but… There were no more later. Bush fight just a few meters later (0:09). Eventually I decided to stop searching for any traces of previous hikers and side paths and I directly followed a dry creek. Happy to be fully cloth covered, even if it was not specially thorny. 23 minutes to barely hike 300m and 40m elevation loss. With a few scrambling sections and tons of branch and bush pushing. But finally I was on the coastline (2 – 0:30).

Moving forward a section that I knew well. Able to coasteer relatively fast same as with Denvy the previous time. Arrive at the pier and police buoy area (3) and turn into the bay. At its very West the bottom of the stream (4 – 1:06).

The lower part is flat within the woods. It did not take me long to navigate among the trees avoiding some dense vegetation before finding the main tributary up. As mentioned, I had the Five Tens inside the bag, but the rocks looked grippy enough to try to continue with the NB full route ✅️

Wide stream at the bottom, old big trees, really far away from civilization, perfect ground for fauna to thrive. And… OMG, is that a… Yes! Almost perfectly camouflaged max sized python.

I enjoyed watching it completely calm a bit more and I continued on my way. Funnily, later, a few times I thought I saw another python. Not really. But their pattern perfectly matches this stream’s colors.

The day was as hot as expected. Eventually I knew that I was going to run out of water. The flow was not specially good the higher I went. At around 125m elevation I decided to take a break, eat some snacks and use the filter to drink approx 1 liter & fill the half liter flask. It was definitely a good decision. At 140m the water disappeared almost completely. Higher I found more but significantly worse looking (stagnant) and even higher iron oxidized red tainted (2:33). Navigation got worse also. Denser vegetation. Some broken trees. I lost the stream for a while, but I reconnected further up. Some more bush and eventually I made it to the main hiking path around the reservoir (7 – 2:30). Reset everything in the backpack and run back to the starting point.

You have the option to end at Wu Kau Tang. Running mode I preferred my version and get a cold Pokari or whatever ASAP 😅

Everything you should know before stream hiking.