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In Hong Kong, it's nice that Google maps has some hiking trails, but it has no notion of trail quality. Hong Kong really has some great official hiking trails
by KMag 6y ago
In Hong Kong, it's nice that Google maps has some hiking trails, but it has no notion of trail quality. Hong Kong really has some great official hiking trails with markers every 1 km, mostly dirt, but with some concrete sections. Google maps also has some very questionable routes, with no indication that you're going to be blazing a trail through 6-foot high brush or scaling a rock with help of a very sketchy rope cobbled together from several ratty ropes.
I do see now that the Mount Butler HF radio station is no longer marked "Gas Station" (hint: barbed wire and guard dog warning signs aren't common at gas stations) on Google maps, so at least some things have gotten better. At least the desktop maps also have some indication of trail quality, but it shows as a high quality trail the most direct trail from Explosive Ordinance Disposal Depot at the Quarry Bay rock quarry to Jardine's Lookout on the back side of the quarry. That trail includes a scramble up a rock face with the assistance of a cobbled-together sketchy rope, and trail blazing through bamboo leaves that will give you paper cuts. My wife now refers to that path as "I will kill you Hubby Mountain".
When we first moved to North Point, my wife and I were looking for an alternative route from our place up over the mountain range to Stanley. Google maps ended up taking us to the Morning Garden (fair enough), but then through a bunch of knee-length grass where the trail was apparently only virtual, down to the front face of the quarry in Quarry Bay, past the police shooting range and the EOD Depot, up a narrow concrete flash flood control ditch, and up a rock face assisted by a cobbled-together rope some kind soul left for others, and finally a scramble to meet Jardine's Lookout at the back side of the quarry. It wasn't that dangerous, but it was very rough and my wife wasn't happy about bamboo leaf cuts on her legs. Google maps really should have had us continue on Sir Cecil's Ride until it met the Wilson Trail behind the quarry, instead of taking a shortcut through Morning Garden.
We always take plenty of water and download the government map PDFs to our phones. I have plenty of experience navigating the wilderness on the US-Canadian border. I have plenty of orienteering / map reading as well as dead-reckoning experience. Still, it'd be nice to have a trustworthy navigating app to double-check my route.
- richardcrossley 6y agoThe HK Government produces some excellent paper maps that have a water resistant coating. I bought mine in the General Post Office in Central, near IFC. There's also the maps shop at the junction of Nathan Road and Gascoigne Road in Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon