Suicide Cliff I

As all things in Hong Kong do we started the day at an MTR station, in this case City One MTR in Sha Tin. Here I met up with a friend of mine from uni and we got going. We ended up choosing a great day for this hike, the weather was slightly cooler than normal but we still had crystal clear skies and you could see for miles. I have since done the hike a second time (most of my latest insta posts are from it) where the weather wasn’t as clear although no less spectacular

We started off by just making our way out of the city before we started the ascent through the jungle, this hike isn’t exactly short walk but both of us are fairly active and therefore we managed to make quite quick work of this initial stage

The views you get on most hikes in Hong Kong aren’t exactly shoddy but this one takes the cake as far as hikes i’ve been on already . The day we did this the city was fog and smog free although there was a stretch, between Kowloon Peak and reaching the Helicopter pad by suicide cliff, where the clouds came up one side passing directly over us and then onwards to the city, I thought I had taken a video of this but I appear to have lost it (will update if I find it) so have this picture instead

Once we had passed through this literal cloud we were basically there already, we went on a not so busy day so didn’t even have to wait very long to get this iconic shot of Hong Kong, the proverbial cherry on top to an amazing day and an incredibly picturesque hike

We chose the long way round, so there are much shorter and quicker ways of doing this if all you want is that iconic cliff shot. If however, you have time the long way round gives you the same reward but with the additional benefits of showing you more of this amazing country, featuring some stints in the jungle, heading across several peaks and even giving you some unique shots along the way. This is the exact route we ended up taking, or at least the map we used to guide us, so if you’re spending a longer time in Hong Kong or even if you’re a local and haven’t climbed up here yet DO IT!

I have a slight fear of heights myself but the view alone is worth facing your fear, and standing on that edge is truly a once in a lifetime feeling, you feel on top of the world, which I guess you are, or at least on top of Hong Kong, I cannot encourage you to do this enough

Once we had taken these pictues we however faced the biggest challenge of the day, getting down again, as the name suggests Suicide Cliff is at the top of a cliff. The walk down, more of a scramble honestly, is not a fun thing to do although time it with the sunset and as you emerge from the bushes into civilisation at the bottom and you get a spectacular set of views all the way down

And then once you’ve made it down you make the realisation that the nearest MTR station is about 1.5km away, but its worth it for the ‘gram and the experience as well

– nikmaxott