Hike to Sheung Yiu with Senior Couples

Today was a gray, foggy, cool day. Perfect for a day out with the couples. We left early, this was a three bus ride day. And to start the day off right, the #671 bus passed us about a half block away from the stop. Even a large group of running American’s was not enough to get the driver to stop, and so we waited for the next bus. We rode to Diamond Hill which is always a nice ride. There we caught another bus to Sai Kung, where we caught another bus out to the Sheung Yiu Folk Museum and Nature Trail.

Left to right - Jacksons, Gibbons, Smiths, Halversens, Woolseys, Eriksons and Benchs

There were 14 of us today. We stopped at the visitors center of the country park and there in the round about in the middle of the road was 3 water buffaloes, a big bull with about 10 inch long horns, and a mother with a calf. They just lounged in the grass of this small round about, and the calf was cute, it jumped and frisked, but never left it’s mothers side.

Elder Smith taking photos

We viewed a movie about the area before we walked down the trail to the Folk Museum which is a small village which was abandoned in the 1960's and has been restored and now houses traditional Hakka furniture and farming implements. It was quite fun to see how they lived, they had a room for their cattle, and a pig pen right next to their homes. One interesting feature was the hole in the wall to allow their cats and dogs to enter and exit at night. An old village with a very up-to-date idea - doggie doors!

Furniture in museum

They even had dishes in their built in cupboards in the wall, and an old steamer that they did all their cooking in, and lots of old farm implements and jars. One jar had a three inch wide lip running around the top and the opening was in the center. Seems they filled the lip with water to keep ants from getting into the jar. Pretty ingenious.

Shirl and her walking stick

We continued on to the "family walk" and hiked up and over the hill. The temperature was perfect for a hike in the woods. Then back to the visitors center and the beginning of our re-tracing our steps back.

As we headed to the visitors center a few of the slower ones spotted an "elephant ear" plant with huge leaves. Sister Bench stepped down the hill to pose before it for some photo’s. Posing just didn’t seem to be enough so she sat down in the middle of the plant and held onto the two leaf stocks. Next thing we knew she was tipping over backwards, feet over head. Since she has had back surgery not long ago we all forgot to take our pictures and jumped down to save her. But all we heard was her giggling, seems that those huge stocks had just slowly lowered her and she just rolled easily to the ground. No bang, no quick stop, no injury! By this time we were all giggling out of control. After helping her up her first words were, "don’t anyone tell my husband." Which of course Elder Gibbons couldn’t resist doing!

Sister Bench's favorite plant

We stopped in Sai Kung for a late lunch. With all the fresh fish choices, all 14 of us ended up at McDonald’s! So much for broadening our food horizons.

Then back home, where almost all of us hit the grocery stores to stock up for the Sabbath tomorrow.

Eriksons at McDonalds