Training 3: section 9&10 of the Maclehose Trail

Sunday 6 August

Team members on call: Chloe, Elodie and Lorene

Weather: Hot and Sunny

Objective: Section 9&10 of the Maclehose trail + New Finish
Length: 21.9 km
Difficulty: * and *


For this week-end, when again the very hot weather signal is on, we decided to try long and easy, to try section 9&10. In the morning, no more very hot weather signal, but it is still quite hot, so section 9&10, here we come. Also we really need to discover the new finish point.


Section 9 goes very smoothly and quickly. Only 15 min later we noticed we finished it. Lets not forget the break in front of the pine tree as we still cannot get a nice rest area with a view on the reservoir. Indeed, weirdly, after two hours of hiking and a half, we arrived on the new finish trail. Weirdly because the hike is supposed to take 8 hours ... on top of that we jumped from a Maclehose trail signpost 73 to an OTW signpost 93...


We go back to try to understand what and when it went wrong. On our way, we meet some fellow trailwalkers, four guys - but a t what time did they start hiking to be already there .. without taking a shortcut - Yes they did see the reservoir, yes we definitely went the wrong way. No worries, we continue to go back on our steps and find where we missed the trail.
We are now back on track. Youpi!

1 biker, 2 bikers, 10 bikers, the path is not large at all and quite crowded, we need to stop and let them go each time... grrr. We only like the bikers when they show off their abs.
We do see the reservoir now. We turn left to the new trail. It is quite flat, not flat, no road anymore. We finally arrive at the signpost 93, again. Hopefully also, because we can start feeling the lenghth of the trail in the legs.

One last twist though, we are supposed to turn right after the barbecue site .. but which barbecue site? Number 7, 8, 9? Countless barbecue sites around us. At the grocery shop, Elodie put at use her cantonese and we learn that the finish point is at only 20 little minutes walk. Yeah! 2O mn later we do find the holiday camp / Finish point, though we did not eactly arrive the right way, but it is close enough and the normal way go through a gate that will only be open the day of the event. We call it a day.

In the end, with our little detour of 3 km, we walked 25 km. Long and "easy" challenge accomplished.