CLG, Trailwalker, Drowning

After 3 storms, we have a clear weekend at last - well, more or less. 

So loads of people decided to plunge themselves into the water, and some of them decided to get themselves killed.  We had one fatality on Lamma water, and one on Sai Kung.  It's a sobering reminder that even a warm, flat body of water such as that of HK can kill.

Anyway, I rested on Friday to "reserve" a bit of energy for Trailwalker training on Saturday.  Went to Sai Kung early in the morning for CLG with Siu Ming, then met Paul just before 6 to hike section 3.

It wasn't bad either.  I was tired but not totally bombed out.  We got "lost," well, as lost as lost can be on MacLehose anyway.  Somehow we veered a left and got into Shek Hang, we wasted about 30 minutes doubling back (and got our foot gears all wet.)  Came back up, and guess what we did ... we went back the way we came from and had to double back yet again =_=;;  

After we crossed the MacLehose/ Shek Hang intersection for the 3rd time, I got nervous.  Paul kept apologizing, but then it's as much his responsibility as mine.  I'm not very good at land-bound navigation (is it even called navigation on land??), and I'm not an experienced hiker, so I think I wasted quite a bit of energy in the panic.  Anyway, it's good that I got lost with Paul, because he is an excellent leader, and eventually we found our way out, and we were able to debrief and discuss what we did wrong (we were in too much of a hurry and didn't bother to check the signposts in the dark.)  It was a good "crisis management" lesson for me.  But I also think I'm relying on him too much, I really should have brought a map with me (I had a compass.)  If something were to happen to Paul, I wouldn't know how to help him, nor would I know how to get out of the trail, nor would I know how to give instructions to rescuers to reach us. (bring signal flares??)

My knees and toes hurt pretty badly when we ran/hopped down hill towards the end of section 3.  Paul said I have to "get used to it," I don't know, I think my legs are about to lose their buoyancy, and I'll have to load my kayaks with more floaties in the near future.

Practiced CLG again on Sunday, and rested on Monday.  I'm going to start hunting for the gears that I might end up using in NZ, because I want to have a chance to test them out before I throw them into my Nordkapp.

Things I wished I had during Trailwalker training:

an extra pair of socks and shoes

more drinking water (I had 1.5L poccari sweat, Paul had 3L of water)

dinner before the hike

map

a handkerchief 

extra batteries (my torchlight got quite dim.)

runners with better traction!