At 0830 hours, prompt arrival at the Chinese University of Hong Kong to check in for today's excursion to Tung Ping Island. Mission: To observe geological landforms.

Boat ride to the Island. We walked from the station to the ferry with the morning fatigue veiling the relentless exhaustion of the sheer distance of the trek - we haven't even started the walk!

The tickets for the ride was $80 for a return trip and was reasonable for the one and a half hour ride to the remote Island. We were ushered to the upper deck and upon seating on the hard wooden benches, received raffle tickets to sell to people we met. Raffle tickets cost $5 (I think) each. Anybody want one?

Finally, after one and a half hours of nauseous travel, we stumbled onto shore. The weather was typical of the week, cloudy and surprisingly, warmer than anticipated.

We marched to the first checkpoint - a barbecue site to receive the day's lecture and mission statement from the leaders.
Please be patient and see the rest of the photo journal whilst waiting for the video to load -you will see a picture below.

Our kindly instructor came around to the age concept of our planet earth with an innovative and visually enabling paradigm - a length of rope, with each segment representing a piece of time. Much time was consumed as fellow scouts tried to calculate the length of rope that represented specific amounts of time but the concept came across crystal clear: we exist in a mere morsel of geological time.

Having put the concept in mind, we went to observe these ancient rocks down by the beach. The coastal rocks were sedimentary rocks, formed by the iterative compression and folding of eroded sediments from the main land. The end result is a layered, flaky yet strong piece of rock.

 

The clouds forbade any decent beach scenes but the mirth of our scouts dispelled the morning apathy and we proceeded to collect stone specimens (if they were good) or else we chucked them stones into the sea.

A few minutes on the beach were good enough for me and the rest of the ferry crowd were beginning to arrive, so we moved on towards the historic sandstone structures in the East. Most of the houses are now abandoned and left to decay in the summer storms and winter rains.

Some of the houses have been renovated by tourists and are somewhat fancier than the surrounding ruins. With a permanent population less than fifty, six police officers and weekend ferry arrivals only, the settlements are relatively undisturbed.

The second beach we went to was remarkably similar to the one we went previously and as before, scouts became lost in the sand (put your mouse over them!).

Almost lunchtime then... We whisked across the coarse sand towards the cliffs kicking up dust and overtaking tourists. Please be patient and wait for a few minutes if you want to see this video

After the tiring walk across the beach, we settled down atop the stacks at the Eastern point of the Island.

The cliff was not a foreboding place and it wasn't a jiffy until everyone started grossly consuming sandwiches, fruit, drinks and eggs - eggs?

Lunch aside, some of us continued to explore the site, satisfying the inner reaches of our youthful curiosity. Interesting flora such as the cacti some distance from the shore and an ancient shrine caught the lens as we trundled around the rocky slopes.

After lunch, we continued our trek around the shores of the island.

The glitch premiere during this hike was the 'loss' of our scout instructors after visiting the first beach. - All the scouting leaders and some of our scouts disappear during our time at the shingle playground. Even a search party failed to discover their trail after two attempts.

... But all was resolved after a half hour of waiting around in the shade (quite scary, that...). We toiled to the Eastern tip through the South Bend and that was probably the most interesting place on the forsaken island. Stacks and stumps of sedimentary bedrock crisscrossed the cloudy shores. Fellow members paid more attention to the scenery here than at any other time and it was worth their looking for there were no replacements on Hong Kong nor anywhere else by my experience.

 

 

Common interests arose from the chiseling of rock through identical methods.

The atmosphere there was surreal. It was cold and windy. Waves lashed the rocks leaving streams of brine running into the ocean whence it came. Scouts stood amongst the millennia-old rocks by the sea joyful with play (stuck in their foreheads).

Objects that aroused interest were manipulated and attracted wanton attention.

The last leg of the journey was most treacherous. Some people reported that the rocky path encircling the shore was passable, therefor being adventurous, the leaders decided to take the 'path' around the shores instead of walking around the more placid dirt roads along the top. The rocks were slippery as the gradient was gentle and most of them had been washed by the high tide some hours ago. The first parts were hard enough, but as the distance between the beach and the group grew so did the difficulty of the trek.

Having averted the dangers of slipping and falling into the sea, breaking bones and skin etc. we made it onto the soft sandy beach that stretched towards the harbor. The sand was most fine, making it extremely inefficient to walk upon. I chose to stride on the tidal washes of coarse material and within a painstaking half hour, reached the harbor where the ship was waiting >