Yesterday was a chill out day….we needed it! Had a beaut lay-in…. got breakfast, walked around the city and found Kowloon Park. The park is massive, with a sports centre, bird sanctuary, maze, fish, tortoises, statues, fountains…..the lot. We had a look in the sports centre where they had Olympic size swimming pools and diving boards. There were some really good divers doing mental somersaults ending with a perfect finish….most the time! We heard about a Steakhouse which did really good food but was always rammed!.... so we booked a table for later on and had the best meal so far! Then the standard few beers and an early night!

Today was dependant on the weather… if it was sunny we would go to a beach, and if not go to a place called The Peak.

Weather was nice but not overly hot so decided The Peak would be perfect - this is a large building with a sort of banana shaped viewing terrace on the top. It is the highest terrace in Hong Kong with 360° views of the city below ( see pictures ).

You had to get a tram up to the top, which meant yes, more queuing! The tram ride was more like a rollercoaster as it climbed up the mountain but we arrived safe! The views were amazing! Afterwards, we went back to the tram to go down and the queue was huge again so we thought we would have a wander around first.

We saw a sign to a country park so decided to have a walk around that. We walked quite far, the whole time going downhill and realised we may as well walk to the bottom again…

It was such a nice peaceful place, with lots of unusual trees and plants. Unusually there are hardly any flies, mosquitoes etc….we just a few butterflies!

About halfway down we found a rocky stream going through the mountain and thought we would check it out. One thing led to another and we just kept going down this route until we found a small waterfall ( hopefully one of many )! We managed to climb down this with ease until we reached a lagoon with crystal clear water!

There were a few danger signs around, but they were warning about flash floods, and swimming in the water looked like a good idea! Lloyd was getting ready to dive in when an old Chinese local shouted something to us…

BIG LIZARDS! ….he was chuckling to himself but still, it worried us a bit as we didn't know if he was laughing at how stupid we were being, or if he was winding us up! He then turned a bit more serious so we got back onto dry land pretty sharpish! We then spoke to another local that was watching over the lagoon, he confirmed that there were lizards around the area that camouflage themselves in the bamboo and they are poisonous if they bite!! Fair to say we were relieved we got out when we did!

When we got to the bottom of the mountain we caught a bus back to the district where our hostel is, and booked a table for dinner! We had dinner about an hour ago, Italian, so not very cultured tonight but very nice!

We are now having a couple of beers in our favourite Irish bar in honour of our good friend Dan Havell who sadly passed away today after battling a long term illness! This one is for you… RIP x