Walking 百拉卡步道 to 大屯自然公園 through二子坪

It was the 4th day in a roll that I suffered from insufficient sleep. Who cares? It only happens once a year to have three outings in five days, and it must be arranged during Chinese Lunar New Year. Hiking from 二子坪to大屯 is our program today. I got up even earlier as I didn’t have time to prepare for it last night after finishing the article regarding our HuaLien trip for the blog.

Haste makes waste. I left my cell phone home recharging and there was no way to go back and take it after I realized this catastrophe caused by my careless nature as being late and letting others wait is unforgivable. I had a bad feeling on the way to the MRT stop that I hadn’t been before. Unexpected things may still happen even to a perfect planning. Remember Murphy’s Law? I won’t elaborate here in details to bore you. Just believe me that my hunch was right. Fortunately I was forgiven by my friends’ big hearts and sweet understanding.

Today there were five of us made it to the hike, Lydia, Moses, Pamela, Virginia and I. It was perfectly understandable as New Year Holidays were over. Other goldies and our friends had to work. Lydia and Virginia drove to YMS in one car; Moses, Pamela and I drove in another car. Then we five drove to 二子坪 in one car. How joyful we were having each other’s company to chat freely. The mountain looked much quieter and even vaster with only few visitors,. The view is sensational under the clear sky. How lucky that we had excellent weather for all our three outings!

I put on my new hiking wear, layer after layer. I wanted to show others especially Virginia that I am serious about doing things right. Interestingly I found Pamela and Moses put on their new hiking wear, too. The most amazing thing was that Pamela chose the same style and same colors as I did. See, goldies even have the same taste! Virginia was truly satisfied with the sight and asserting that we would have a better experience in the right outfit.

Along the way, Virginia pointed at those interesting plants and told us their names. What an interesting lesson and bonus we got from the outing! We hiked slowly reading the plants and enjoying the view along the track. Still it only took us about an hour to arrive at the大屯park . The park was so clean, spectacular and well maintained. We saw a big fish, and two mandarin ducks. Where were other fish? We tried to use our imagination. To our big surprise they were two male ducks and were swimming shoulder to shoulder! What a pity that I forgot to ask Virginia to take a picture of it. The small lake was lovely. After taking some pictures on the grass and some refreshments at the 大屯Nature Park , we took a bus back to the place we parked our car. I eagerly suggested we walked back, but no one seconded.

Then Virginia took us to a lovely tea house 老聃的家/觀園樓that was run by one of her park-volunteer friend to have a light yet scrumptious lunch. The dessert, roasted yam, was also finger licking. It had a very good broad view from the table we sat at - almost half of the whole YMS. Of course Virginia chose for us, after all she had being a regular customer here. It was time to leave after two hours eating, and chatting. We talked a lot about other activities we can do, about other activities our friends do. I incidentally challenged others with my big bragging mouth. I definitely have to pay for the big mouth I have sooner or later.

Our outing hadn’t finished yet. Except Lydia who had to run some other errands, we went to
get some more hiking wear. We are not shopaholics, just wanted to make sure we have enough and well functioned stuff we need for more challenging hikes.

What a hike! What a park! What a day! After the two warm-ups, 冷水坑 to 擎天崗 and . 百拉卡步道 to 大屯自然公園,we are ready for our next more challenging goal, 小油坑--->豋七星山頂--->冷水坑. Exciting, isn’t it? Get ready and join us!

Trini