Farm with a view
Took E. and the kids to the Kadoorie Farm on Saturday following my successful visit in July. Hadn't realised that , for parking, it was necessary to book in advance ( must have been lucky last time) but managed to prevail upon the car park attendant to let us park in the office area Visitor's car park. The advantage of this (after we had given the admin. department all our details) was that we could drive around the farm.
First stop however was the farm shop. Having assured E that there was a cafe on site, we discovered that apart from some organic bananas and vegetable chips/wafers, the farm shop focused more on improving books ("Care for your Pedigree Pig", "How to grow Lentils" etc.) rather than food. This must be the only tourist attraction in the whole of HK that does not have a cafe (even the play areas have them). Having dined on vegetable crisps (actually quite tasty) we took a look at the pedigree pigs (not quite Hogzilla but certainly carrying a bit of weight in my opinion) and A. made a book mark. We also took a look at the raptor house (mostly buzzards) and the reptile house (slightly worryingly most of the cages were empty with wide open doors ...). Apart from one or two families we had the place pretty much to ourselves (given the extreme mid afternoon heat probably not that surprising).
We then drove up the mountain to the viewing point that I had visited on my last trip here. It was actually rather higher, and steeper, than I remembered it particularly when trying to navigate our ageing BMW up the increasingly narrow track. The precipitous roads were a little reminiscent of San Fransisco (although obviously slightly greener and with fewer wailing police sirens). At the top, the view was rather obscured by the haze (and by clouds of dragonflies that were congregating around the statue at the top - E. took a little persuading to ascend the summit). However, the views over to Tai Po etc. were still good and we had the place to ourselves.
The descent was like a challenging red run when skiing - perched on the edge of severe inclines where you can't actually see the bottom. We did get down in one piece although I noticed that the suspension was bust on one side of the car.
Made it back to Tai Tam Towers in good time (even avoiding the obligatory wrong turning towards Kowloon. All in all a good day.
First stop however was the farm shop. Having assured E that there was a cafe on site, we discovered that apart from some organic bananas and vegetable chips/wafers, the farm shop focused more on improving books ("Care for your Pedigree Pig", "How to grow Lentils" etc.) rather than food. This must be the only tourist attraction in the whole of HK that does not have a cafe (even the play areas have them). Having dined on vegetable crisps (actually quite tasty) we took a look at the pedigree pigs (not quite Hogzilla but certainly carrying a bit of weight in my opinion) and A. made a book mark. We also took a look at the raptor house (mostly buzzards) and the reptile house (slightly worryingly most of the cages were empty with wide open doors ...). Apart from one or two families we had the place pretty much to ourselves (given the extreme mid afternoon heat probably not that surprising).
We then drove up the mountain to the viewing point that I had visited on my last trip here. It was actually rather higher, and steeper, than I remembered it particularly when trying to navigate our ageing BMW up the increasingly narrow track. The precipitous roads were a little reminiscent of San Fransisco (although obviously slightly greener and with fewer wailing police sirens). At the top, the view was rather obscured by the haze (and by clouds of dragonflies that were congregating around the statue at the top - E. took a little persuading to ascend the summit). However, the views over to Tai Po etc. were still good and we had the place to ourselves.
The descent was like a challenging red run when skiing - perched on the edge of severe inclines where you can't actually see the bottom. We did get down in one piece although I noticed that the suspension was bust on one side of the car.
Made it back to Tai Tam Towers in good time (even avoiding the obligatory wrong turning towards Kowloon. All in all a good day.
posted by Taitamtales at 8:57 pm
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The first two words of this post suggested an entirely different story was about to be told...
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