Monday - Travelling in the New Territories.

Well Em has entered what is her final week of work here and is still furiously working on getting the new starter up to speed. It's a short one too with it being a national holiday for Buddha's birthday on Friday, so Em's last day here will be Thursday.
We were up at around 6 and I was out by 06.45 and on the MTR for 7.00 headed for the Sai Kung National Park in the New Territories. Just in case you're following on a map this involved an MTR from Central to Mong Kok, Change line and on to Choi Hung, Bus from there to Sai Kung, then another bus to Wong Shek ferry pier in the Sai Kung West National Park. I was already in the town of Sai Kung by the time Em got to work and in all it took me 2 hours to get to Wong Shek Pier, the start point for the day. After watching a load of college students loading their boat for the day up with all kinds of canoeing equipment. I got the 10.20 Kai-To from Wong Shek for a 2 hour journey stopping at Tap Mun Island, and various other places and skirting the Chinese border before heading down the Tolo Channel past Plover Cove and finally berthing at Ma Lui Shui in the Tolo Harbour. There are very few settlements here, and the Islands are for the most part untouched. The whole area is a protected geological park. There were both Police patrol boats doing spot checks in evidence and also numerous Chinese PLA PT boats and a Destroyer. The PLA have been maintaining a very high profile in the South China Sea in recent weeks and there have been a number of articles about it in the South China Morning Post. Apparently China has been building up it's navy over the past 10 years since becoming a major financial player and has been flexing it's muscle in the area over the last few months, much to the disgust of neighbours Japan, Taiwan, The Phillipines and Indonesia. Who are all alarmed at the scale of the manouvers that have been taking place. Indeed the PLA are currently patrolling the south China Sea enforcing a fishing ban in their waters. On arrival at Ma Lui Shui i headed for University station and headed straight down eastern rail line to Hung Hom where I picked up a Star Ferry to central, grabbed a coffee and went to the garden cafe/bar on pier 3 where i stayed till Em joined me after work. I got chatting to a very funny Danish airline pilot called Soeren over a beer or two. We ate at the reclaimation diners on our way home.
Pics will be up soon but as of writing this it's really sunny today so I am contemplating heading back to University to go on the Kai-To again to get some more pics as there are storms forecast for the end of what is our final week, but heading in the other direction this time ending at Wong Shek. The Boat leaves at 3pm which means I'll more than likely not be home too early so I may have to wait till tomorrow to put the pics taken over the 2 days up. That is of course if I don't make the trip to Tai Long Wan that I'm seriously contemplating!!