Peak Time

Slack start this morning so we didn't get up till gone 7:30. A leisurely start then down from North Tower where our room is to the dining room in South Tower. Excellent breakfast and attentive staff who greet you by name. Trying to work out the best use of our time given the weather.. It is very grey and overcast this morning.

We decided to ride the star ferry to Central and try the peak anyway. So an interesting walk across huge new reclaimed area that didn't exist 12 years ago as along a raised walkway that gave views of skyscrapers and traffic before we arrived at Central.. A quick bob down to buy an octopus card (another sodding no change incident at the star ferry convinced us that what ever yesterday's guide said it was just easier even for 2 days). Round Central is peak shopping country for the wealthy denizens of HK: Gucci, Harvey Nicks etc etc. Then a walk to the peak tram past the Cathedral, a relic of HK's colonial times,. We then walked along Battery Path... Past the missionary headquarters and just below government house... All so colonial.

Huge queues at the tram but after a short while we realised that if you had an octopus card you could skip the cash desk and go to the gate.. We had to wait for a member of staff to drop the rope but it saved a bit of queueing. Sadly we then ended up with a large noisy party who irritated Dad and who occupied all the decent seats so we were spread up the tram. By the time we got to the top it was intermittently cloudy. Then we saw the enormous queue to go back down stretching for miles. We walked to the viewpoint and took some photos but there were more vocal tourists and by now Dad was very grumpy. So we went for a restorative Starbucks coffee and muffin (well Dad did, I had a cup of tea and a blueberry yogurt). Balance restored we wandered to see if the queue had decreased or whether we should play hunt the bus. Hallelujah the queue was nothing, we got seats on the view side and all was well. The only down side was the lashing rain....Read more