Last week was the birthday week so decided to end it with the Pat Sin Leng hike on 20th February, 2021. So Lamiya, Urvi, Nigel and I successfully did the 8 immortals and more on this hike and fed our famished selves at a lovely Thai restaurant at Tai Mei Tuk.
Pat Sin Leng is a mountain range in the northeast New Territories of Hong Kong, located within the Pat Sin Leng Country Park. The name Pat Sin Leng literally means “Ridge of the Eight Immortals”, who are eight well-known xian (immortals or fairies) in Chinese Mythology. The eight peaks elevation range from 489-590 meters.
Difficulty: 7/10 involves loads of climbing, steps, rugged terrain and the initial part of the hike of the Pat Sin Leng ridge is extremely steep. Over 234 floors climbed on this hike as per my Apple watch and over 20,000 steps walked and climbed 😅. 2 ICC towers climbed 😂 as stated by Nigel.
Duration: 5 hours with breaks and photo stops.
How to get there: We took the MTR to Fanling and exited at C. There’s a minibus terminus just outside the Mtr.
The 52B mini bus ( http://www.16seats.net/eng/gmb/gn_52b.html) takes you to the junction of Hok Tau road and Lau Shui Heung road; Hok Tau Reservoir. That’s where we started our hike. However from exit A3, we took a green taxi as there was a serpentine line for the mini bus and paid 49 HKD.
We took a taxi from the taxi stand 
The hike started with a long walk on the concrete path. It was nearly 3 kilometres. At one point we thought we were on the wrong trail. But we kept walking and also asked fellow hikers on the way.
We continued on this path, passed the Hok Tau campsite and continued till we reached the reservoir.
We came to a makeshift toilet and walked till we reached an intersection. We turned left and got onto the bridge.
We passed the reservoir and continued on the concrete path following the Wilson trail distance posts.
We finally came to a sit out area and climbed up 5 steps took the right and alas there was the Hok Tau Reservoir Family walk.
And the actual hike began with rugged terrain and extremely high, rocky steps. We followed the Pat Sin Range sign. Urvi had donned a bandana which made her look like a young ‘ sardar’ kid and we rechristened her ‘ Urvinder Singh Neoni.’ Neoni due to the bright green neon tee. 😄
And up and up and up we climbed…..
Many hikers took breaks along the way as this was not an easy climb. As I mentioned earlier the height of the steps were a stride up even for a long legged lass like me. 😅
We continued on our way …. it was hot and sweaty 🥵. I left my sweaty drops on every step I climbed.
We stopped for some clicks and enjoyed the terrain. At some parts the terrain resembled snow… it was white and extremely pretty.
We followed the sign pointing towards the Pat Sin Range.
We continued on the path and I took a video shot too.
We looked ahead and realised there was a lot more to traverse, more ups and more downs, more inclines and more declines. But this didn’t stop us… we were in high spirits unlike the West Dog’s teeth hike.
Beautiful flowers graced the path, little sprigs of pink along the way added colour to the greys of the mud.
We continued on the ridge filled with beautiful views on both sides.
From here, Lamiya converted to the Conjuring part 2 nun with Urvi’s jacket used as a veil. It was extremely hot and we were exposed to direct sunlight.
At this point we decided to take a break and snacked on delicious Dhoklas ( an Indian snack made up of chickpea flower tempered with mustard seeds and coriander leaves) made by Lamiya and refreshing tea made by Urvi.
Post the break we continued and reached the top of Wong Leng which had an elevation of 639 meters.
We clicked pictures and enjoyed the view. We could see the 76m-tall steel-framed, bronze-forged white statue of Guan Yin (Goddess of Mercy, also known as Kwun Yum) from here too.
We continued towards the Pat Sin Leng range which seemed to be never ending. We hadn’t met the immortals or fairies yet.
Here we enjoyed the views and did a bit of a photoshoot too.
And my favourite picture … a spontaneous kiss with Nigel.
Ok enough of kissing, let’s get back to the hike. We continued on our way and were getting closer to the 8 hills.
And again we met our favourite… steps. Flights of steps we climbed till we reached the first peak.
The 8 immortals were in sight.
Immortal 1
We were elated when we finished all 8 immortals and our stomachs were rumbling as we were famished.
We walked towards Tai Mei Tuk. However, this path was extremely long and never ending. Lamiya had hurt her foot and we were a bit tired. My legs were trembling too as I had had an extremely active week. But we trudged along.
We reached out the Spring Breeze pavilion and continued downwards.
Spring Breeze Pavilion (春風亭) was built on the mountain in memory of the five who died. It was inaugurated by the then-Governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, on 12 March 1996.
We finally reached end of the trail and took the right on Ting Kok road towards Tai Mei Tuk village.
