Ma Dai Stream

This trip might have been one of my favorite hikes! Although not exactly a traditional hiking trail, my friends and I had a lot of fun clambering over rocks upstream. Only about a 5 minute taxi ride from the University MTR Station, the beginning of the trail started near Tai Shui Hang MTR exit B. We started our trek at 2:00pm and passed multiple rock pools and small waterfalls on our way to our destination: Hero’s Cliff. We stopped many times to catch our breath, eat some snacks, and discuss which rock looked the safest to climb or whether we were on the right path when we were bushwhacking our way uphill. Usually ahead of my two exchange friends, I swept through many huge spider webs for them usually headfirst. After the first couple webs, we armed ourselves with sticks and made our way through the bushes with a little more caution. There were some big spiders out there. It was definitely an adventure! We had to lookout for sparse pink ribbons that marked the safest path through the rocks and trees. At one point, when we were trying to figure out how to cross the stream to get to a rope that we were supposed to climb down (according to the pink ribbons and multiple sources on Google), we spotted two men, barefoot and shirtless, hopping with ease over rocks and swiftly making their way down the rope. We followed them best we could and eventually made it to Hero’s Cliff. It had taken us a total of 2 hours. We arrived in time for golden hour and immediately hopped into the water, thankful for its coolness after the humidity and heat of the hike. The waterfall itself felt a lot bigger in person than it does in the photos and as the sun started setting, the whole area became covered in rays of gold light. It was beautiful. On our way down, we discovered a short cut – there was a service road leading up to the dam that went all the way down to the beginning of the trail. In retrospect, it would have saved about an hour and a half on the way up. But the climb up was all part of the fun!