Snakes, Monkeys and Jungle

A walk in the New Territories on Sunday threw up a number of surprises. Not far into the first hill climb, we came across a small group of people dressed head to foot in camouflage and carrying cameras on long tripods with huge lenses. Weirdos, we all thought, what on earth could be so exciting in a Hong Kong country park? They seemed to be pointing their cameras at a big tree root. Nature weirdos, obviously. And then we got a bit closer and saw that the object of their zoom lenses was not a tree root at all. No, it was a huge python, stretched across the path, with its head hidden in the bushes. One of the camo group reckoned it was 20 foot long. It had clearly eaten something rather large as it was incredibly fat, which would also explain it being slap bang in the middle of the path, exposed to people and animals that it would ordinarily hide from. Perhaps it had just eaten a small Chinese family. We were on the Family Trail after all.

The giant python wasn't the only wildlife we saw that day. We were walking along a narrow path, high up in the forest, when we heard what sounded like the snort of a boar, followed by a sort of barking. Worried that we might be approaching a pack of wild dogs, we pulled out a walking stick from the backpack and prepared to fight off some snarling canines. When I say 'we' I of course mean The Father and The Husband. I was crouched behind both of their backs. It was only as they were prepared to fight (and I to flee) that The Husband spotted something in the trees. "They're just monkeys!" he laughed. Panic over. A family of monkeys had become separated by the path and they were warning each other of the impending footsteps of The Humans.

The other form of wildlife came in the form of two very strange Chinese men who, judging by their hairstyles, seemed think that it was still the sixties. We actually heard them before we saw them as they were blasting out some terrible song from their mobile phone, held high for maximum volume. They obviously didn't treasure the quiet of the hills we were walking and felt that the howling and shrieking of Canto Pop was more to their liking.

We passed through bamboo forests and thick jungle before finally reaching the car and turkey sandwiches.