Penang Hills and Trails - Nibbinda Circular 2016
Getting back up to Speed.

This is one of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang, click here for the index. This is a shorter than average Grade 2 walk. There is a sketch map at the bottom showing the route followed.

Please visit my Penang buses page for information on accessing the starting point.

It's November 2016 and we're back for another action packed season of Penang hikes, regular reports will appear here until March 2017.

We'd been back for several days, the chores had been ticked off for the most part, we'd had our traditional stroll in The Secret Garden and I had established that getting the PBA'a permission and assistance to visit the missing Rain Gauges 1 and 5 was not a trivial exercise. Time to get back to what we do best in other words. We used the tried and tested 101 / 501 route to Balik Pulau and as it must be some kind of Lent somewhere, I didn't pack any Tiger. Well, it was actually more to do with needing a clear head after an 8 month break. We took the Air Itam Road out of town, discovering that our regular watering hole had closed and that a very polite young schoolboy thought (correctly) that we should have brought our umbrellas.

Basically, we were climbing into an area which I have described in some detail in 'The Balik Pulau Explorer 2' report, at that point we were coming to the end of our season and looking a little trimmer than now. The key is to turn right at the right electricity pole - HT NH 4 88. It's a fairly steep climb but it's a good path with views out to sea, it's easy to work out it was somewhat overcast. 

We went up past the big tree and the abandoned house to the point where we usually turn left but we carried straight on up through the fruit orchard, it's good hiking. The key junction is the fourth picture below, I find it easy to remember as Yuehong took some kind of bath in the pool behind on the occasion of our first descent here when she was less steady on her feet than she is now.

Just round the corner is a house and the path continues past it. About now it started raining and I offered Yuehong the option of returning for some shelter, but she declined on the very sensible grounds that were both bathed in sweat. By the time we reached the next junction we were almost at the point where we could see rubber trees ahead.

Not very far above where the path turns sharp left along the edge of the rubber, there is a barely perceptible gap in the undergrowth and stepping through you are immediately on to a rubber terrace.

Any one of several will do, but if you get the right one, then it will be wider and clearer. Happiness is 5 minutes on the flat especially when the rain is starting to ease off. Turning right would lead down eventually to the Nibbinda approach road.

Going straight brought us to the Nibbinda ridge where we turned right towards the monastery where the latest addition is still incomplete.

I would hesitate to criticise the donors as they have paid for steps down exactly where I would want them.

Unfortunately, they did see the need to finish the job for us and I needed a quick recce to find a way down the near vertical slope ahead into the fruit orchard, at least I knew from a previous ascent that there was a path not too far below.

Time to enter reverse gear, the soil was very treacherous after the rain.

It was only two levels and as often seems to happen to us, we found ourselves at the top of a path, which gradually grew wider and wider...

 until it tuned to concrete and soon we crossed the stream and came to the main path down to Balik Pulau.

We had made astonishingly good progress, it was just 2 hours since we had left Balik Pulau and another half an hour saw us at the bus station. We even had half an hour to spare before the 14.30 501 bus to Teluk Bahang.

We hopped on a 502 into town and I was deputed to watch the bags with the assistance of a couple of tame Tigers while Yuehong wandered off to engage the local populace. I grabbed a nasi kandar take away and we were home before 16.00, something very unusual. I don't have a rest day ahead as I have a dead computer to resuscitate but we'll be back out in a couple of days, it won't be too challenging  just yet as there has been and extraordinary amount of rain lately and the jungle trails need to be left to dry out.