A World of Grey - Tuesday the 24th of May, 2011

A long Tuesday night run was in order but since the wife doesn't like me running on isolated trails by myself late at nights (I suppose I can understand that), the High Junk Peak trail was ruled out. So I thought I'd run the "big loop" out to Wilson Trail Stage 3, down towards Yau Tong, cutting it short and heading down to Tiu Keng Leng and lastly cruising back up to HKUST. I used to run this route a bit when I was living in Hang Hau, but since I moved have only ran it twice.

Similar to the day before, the sky was heavily overcast, ensuring that the run would be soaked in grey and I wouldn't get the wonderful sunset photos as I on the last Tuesday night run. So I thought, if the world was going to be grey anyway, why not shoot everything in black and white? So I did:


The mist rolls in as I head up the hill towards the start of the trail.

Personally, I really find that black & white photography can impart a lot of emotion, potentially more than colour photography, because you're focused on the contrast and conflict in the scene, instead of distracted by the colours.


Mist Partially covers the hills further out towards Sai Kung


Passing through a village as I turn onto Wilson Trail. Most of Section 3 of Wilson Trail is paved, meaning I can move a lot faster, enabling me to get off the trail before sun-down.


Probably a little too dark, the trail winds through this valley


Finally hitting the dirt section of the trail, I really enjoyed getting a little altitude and looking down on the darkening world


Stairs on the shortish dirt section


Looking down towards Tiu Keng Leng, where I'll be in 40mins, the misty vista has an old time-y feel in the shot


I find one of the trigonometric markers scattered on almost all significant HK peaks. Whenever I find one, I feel compelled to climb atop, breathe deep and soak in all around me. Normally they're positioned in the open (so to be easily spotted), but the view from atop this one was a little disappointing, encircled by trees as it is


The light starting to fade a little prematurely due to the heavy clouds, I descend towards O King Road, and eventually Tiu Keng Leng, dropping roughly 260m in 2.5km.


As I get lower, the buildings rise around me


By the time I'm eye-level with the ~20th floor, the street-lamps have come on and windows are slowly lighting up


The Design School looks just as good at night as it does during the day


Almost to the last tough climb back up to UST, I loved the subtle shadows that played against these walls (I have quite a few obscure dark shots like this!)


Working hard up the final hills. The last climb was tough, but easier than I was expecting.


Once again, I've added the photos to the route where they were taken. Even though the thumbnail is small, you should be able to follow them top to bottom. Also easy to notice how much I prefer to take photos on the dirt trails!


The elevation profile clearly showing the three main climbs. Firstly just at the start, secondly onto the dirt trail and lastly almost back at HKUST.

Overall quite a good run, and although my overall speed was quite low, I finished strong and had a bit of juice left over at the end. I think I'll have to give this route another spin soon!

See you in the twilight!
~ Joe