5th October, 1997
Stages 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 of Maclehose Trail
Participants:
Sunday dawned warm and sunny for our 42km hike from Monkey Mountain at the start of stage 6 to Tuen Mun at the end of stage 10. We completed the trek in 8 hours and 16 minutes, including a total of less than 30 minutes for breaks.
Naturally this is quite a bit faster than we would expect after stages 1-5 on the actual day, but even so we were quite pleased with the effort. Stage 6 was a standard 45 minutes, 7 about an hour and a half and 8 around 2 hours. We had a 15 minute break at Route Twisk car park, then belted through stages 9 and 10 in less than 4 hours.
Overall the day was quite sunny, almost a little too warm during the early stages. When we reached the top of Tai Mo Shan we were once again surrounded by cloud, though when we were at Needle Hill we could see it quite clearly.
We both completed the hike in good spirits and apart from slightly sore feet I think we were in good shape physically. I have very little doubt about our ability to complete the trail in November! Since last Saturday we have completed the whole trail in three visits in 8 days.
I hope to see those of you who can make it on Tuesday night at our support team meeting at 7:30 at La Placita at Times Square.
We will set out on another night hike later this week, probably starting Saturday afternoon and continuing into Sunday night. I hope to make it a long one, as this is my last hike before missing two weekends on holidays (reeling in those giant Barramundi, Mangrove Jack and Threadfin Salmon of northen Australia, and letting most of them go!)...