Penang Hills and Trails - Carla's Peak Part 2
Don't They Know It's Christmas?

This is one of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang, click here for the index. This is (reluctantly) a Grade 4 walk on account of the blockages encountered en route. 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.

There are three other reports of visits made to the area about the same time which are worth reading to get a proper picture:

• Carla's Peak Part 1

• Carla's Peak Part 3

• Carla's Peak Part 4

• Carla's Peak Part 5

It was Christmas Day and since it seemed likely that many of Penang's inhabitants would be driving their cars and stuffing themselves in Batu Ferringhi, we stayed in our home area and had another 'hair shirt' day on Carla's Peak (click here for Day 1).

This time we parked Mavis at the back of the 'Leader Garden / Taman Leader' flats where we had finished the previous day, we knew it was unlikely that we would finish anywhere near here and would probably need the service of a 101 bus later.

Even without the obstructions it would rank very low on my list of attractive starts to walks, once we had reached the wide path, we knew what was around the bend. We went down towards the stream... 

... and there was the water jar, I doubt anyone had been along this way save us since the last hash run. It was where we had expected. Now that just leaves a pair of gloves somewhere in the Bukit Gemuruh area where I had also mislaid my stick but had quickly found it.

It was my turn to pose in the morning sunlight.

Yuehong was showing off. She skipped over the tree and then flew up the bare rocks, before calling me back to cross the stream.

This is a lovely route, it's just a shame that there will be few people coming this way who will have time to appreciate it.

We had just a short distance to climb till we would come to the only junction on this section. I'm not sure I would rely on that vine...

It was time to get reacquainted with Mr. (?) BOMMY, a hashman who seems allergic to flat trails.

Whichever way you looked at it, it was steep, but not unacceptably so and the path was clear all the way.

As we passed between two large boulders, the climb eased significantly and finally it became almost level. Knowing now where we were, I suspect that there was a ridge path behind that obstruction where we turned right.

We weren't quite at the summit yet, along the way were a number of what looked to be concrete steps. I cannot imagine how and why they came to be here, only on the Laksamana trail have I seen similar.

Finally after just over two hours we could take a rest and Yuehong could have her all fruit Christmas lunch. Behind us was a fern covered area, which had housed the remains of a rain gauge on my previous visits. I had a look but I would have needed a metal detector to find it this time. I would now guess that it was here to monitor the rainfall in the Sungai Siru catchment area, which solved one of my Penang water mysteries.

There is a path which heads west round the ferns and down and I was heartily glad that BOMMY did not go that way. From painful experience it ends in an aborted development and then down to the back of Moonlight Bay Housing. Instead our trail continued north and straight down. Fortunately, this tree had fallen more or less along the ridge but just to the right of the path. 

At the far end, the path was covered but it was easy to scramble underneath. We continued to be accompanied by an overabundance of signs.

There was just one more tree down which had also done the decent thing.

There was then a dramatic change in vegetation type because the area we were entering had once been a rubber estate and the surviving terraces condition the kind of trees that grow here, no doubt many are feral younger rubber, I didn't spot any old rubber here. It's not much fun descending between the terraces, at one point there was a crashing noise behind me and I turned to see Yuehong complete an involuntary slide, at least these days she has learned to relax and concentrate on a graceful conclusion. 

At times the path followed the ridge down, excellent. At others, it required awkward 'terrace hopping'. There were still plenty of signs and through the trees we could see a variety of high rise buildings just below us.

We passed through this distinctive pair of trees and then right in front of us, there it was:

This is Seaview Garden and on the left almost directly in front of us was Home. Fortunately the mini-garden is not our responsibility, it gets fed, watered and occasionally pruned all officially. We've occasionally heard (and even seen) the hashes going up this path - coming down they are too spread out and knackered to make any noise.

It wasn't that much of a surprise but the last few metres were less than direct as there's a concrete cliff below where I took the picture. We toyed with going left towards Aquarius but soon rejected that idea. Instead we followed BOMMY to its conclusion.

We came out behind a Tua Pek Kong temple in Jalan Pantai Batu, amazingly after more than 7 years of part residence we had never found the need to visit this area. We'd been going (gently) for about 4 hours, the main difference from the day before was the awful first part near the PBA installation. The bird appears to be a Red Lory which is a popular pet according to the web.

Now being utterly shameless, I found a gap in the undergrowth and boundary fence and took the short way home via Sea Range Tower, Yuehong was 'the lady' and went round the proper way. I had showered and finished my first Tiger before she got back. Of course, I then had to recover Mavis but from years of experience that was easy courtesy of the 101 bus from the bottom of our hill. We had our Christmas Dinner at the Goodall eating stalls in Tanjung Tokong, the main dish was half a roasted duck and, as she had done for our anniversary two weeks earlier, she shared a rare Tiger with me.

Both of us have been suffering from reactions to insect bites, Tiger Balm can only provide limited relief and so we granted ourselves a 'rest day', the fact that we unusually slept through till 07.30 indicated that Bukit Gemuruh would again need to wait.

Carla's Peak needs a third visit (at least) to find out how BOMMY got to the 4 way junction, that will be just perfect to avoid the New Year's Eve nonsense and we shall start by going back up behind Seaview Garden.