The International Steam Pages


Penang Hills and Trails - Sungai Ara Explorer 7
The Wooden Bridge Part 2

This is one of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang, click here for the index. This is a short and gentle 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.


Yuehong is under orders from our doctor in Penang to scale back her hiking as her right knee is suffering from osteoarthritis. The day before we had done a short walk that finished at the wooden bridge in the Sungai Ara valley and today we went back to explore a little bit more - it's an area we have never got round to trying out before. We were the best part of two hours earlier than previously, we parked Mavis Mk 2 in the same spot and walked back to the bridge. Once upon a time, it would have been a steam hauled train crossing like this.

The sun was out for the first part of the walk and it was quite a relief to gain a bit of height.

At the first junction, I wanted to check out the horizontal path. As we arrived a farmer arrived on his motorbike. There was a junction by this small hut and we carried on.

The path went slightly down and soon got overgrown. There was an orchard ahead, but it was not an attractive proposition.

Returning to the hut, we noted a path going down but didn't investigate it, instead we went up slightly to this building which had a fish pond next to it.

The path continued behind it, but finished at a water collection point.

Rather than retrace our steps, we clambered up a short distance through some gingers and found ourselves on the path which I had checked out the previous day and which had led to a stream. So we rejoined the main path.

When we came to the junction for the house and the Guan Yin temple, we turned right towards the main crossroads, but almost immediately took a right turn towards the stream.

Just below us was another interesting building, so I went down and crossed the stream. It was locked up but appeared to be a Chinese rock shrine, there had obviously been visitors here recently. I returned to where Yuehong was waiting and we crossed the stream a little higher up.

Unfortunately, the path didn't go much further, these rubber rollers (presses) lay abandoned as a reminder that all of this area had been rubber at one stage. The undergrowth had been treated with herbicide so it was easy to continue slightly upwards. 

Normally I try to avoid crossing streambeds between orchards, but apart from the overhanging bamboo, this was easy.

I looked to my left and saw a wide track, it would need investigating later for its origin. Yuehong went right and when I joined her she was sitting next to three windfall durians. Their smell was acceptable but they were never going to ripen.

Just above was an open area that may have been planned as a house and next door an airy hall obviously regularly used as a Buddhist meeting place.

We noted a house just below to the left which seemed to have migrant workers, unusually it was dogless so our passing went unnoticed. The next point of significance was this hut.

There was a concrete path down, I was sure it was one I had seen from a distance the day before. We went down a little way but as it wasn't what we really wanted at this stage, we went back up, continued and found ourselves at a branch of the Danish Briyani House, I don't think the occupant had seen many hikers come past from the look of surprise on his face.

Beyond, we had two choice round the other side of the hill. The horizontal one led to a recently cleared area where the cut rubber was just starting to regrow, but we could obviously go no further easily. Instead, we went back and took the path shown on the left. 

This climbed towards the edge of this somewhat nondescript patch of land and we climbed up next to another orchard.

On a better day for photography, the view would have been interesting for us as it was our first time here. The hill on the right across the Sungai Ara valley has the 'Blue House' at the top.

We came to a flat area and it was time for a break. To the left a path lead me down to a couple of houses we would visit again later but ahead seemed more interesting.

We didn't have far to go before we changed orchards again, there was a symbolic chain across the path. Very soon, we hit a concrete path. If we had turned right then we would have risked ending up in Relau, which is a fate worse than death if you have started your walk in Sungai Ara. I'll have to check where it goes at some stage but at the moment it's got a very low priority.

So we turned left and soon got to more or less the top of the small hill, the path density here is incredible but fortunately it's open enough to retain some idea of what's going on. To the right appeared undeveloped, it's on the left of the road climbing from Relau and from what we had seen it was to be expected.

This seems to be an area where they don't take their shrines too seriously, we quickly passed it and continued along some kind of ridge.

The next orchard was decidedly greener, quite an achievement as it is some way from any stream.

Beyond the hut on the right was what looked like jungle but was probably abandoned rubber as usual. We had no thought to enter it and took the concrete path down on the left.

I knew roughly where we were and in this area I get twitchy when I see gates as there are plenty of new owners who don't seem to understand the concept of 'open access'. I'm pleased to say that in this case it was unlocked.

Ahead was a familiar birds' nest factory, I'd noted the concrete path before but hadn't thought it went further up the hill. We were now on a very familiar concrete road and looking at the turnings to the left. The first had a fancy new wooden house and a gate that shouted 'keep out'.

We tried the second, a rough concrete road. It turned out to lead to a couple of houses I had seen earlier on a side trip from our refreshment stop.

We took the right turn before the first of them and it led to another small house. The path more or less finished here but it was easy to continue down into the orchard below.

We made our way down the small valley and passed above the house we had seen near the Buddhist meeting hall.

Now was the time for me to let Yuehong rest her knees. I followed the wide track back to its junction with the familiar concrete road, the nearest electricity pole was PPSA 109. Afterwards, my darling wife caught me while displaying my beer protuberance. We discussed which way we should go back down and I expressed a preference for the concrete path we had briefly looked at earlier but worried it might not go through. I was told not to worry as Yuehong had used her toy to check just that and she was sure there would be no problem. 

This was not the time to have an argument because I at least had a plan B should things go pear shaped and off we went down. It was sufficiently steep that neither of us would have wanted to come back up it later.

As we neared the bottom of this orchard, it made a large zig-zag and came to an end at the hut shown.  

Sometimes my on board database is more useful on the ground than either Google Maps or a GPS. Things looked good to me across the stream and the rocks looked nicely arranged. Over we went, and there was just the slight problem that my cunning plan required us to climb a little.

"Do you know where we are?" I was asked, not for the first time. I gave the safe answer "Probably" but I was actually absolutely sure it was the path I had used the day before which ended at the stream we had just crossed.

And so it was and we continued down. At the second junction, I spotted a chair and strongly suggested Yuehong take a rest there before we did the final descent. It was just as well, she is seen discovering that she had forgotten to restart her app after the previous stop and had probably 'lost' at least 1km.

After the last concrete path and the scramble up, her knee was not surprisingly complaining. Never mind, this is as good a descent as they get and once across the wooden bridge it was no distance back to Mavis Mk 2.

We treated ourselves to some prawns in Sungai Pinang and made our way home. We'd had five (shortish) hikes in five days which maybe was a tad more than the doctor would have approved of. Yuehong had an accumulation of chores in town and so I was given a day off to go and do something a little mad.


Sungai Ara Area

Key:

 ____ = Concrete Road

 ____ = Path

 ____ = Easy 'Off piste'

 ____ = Seriously 'Off piste'

(Not all paths are shown, there are many more.)

Click here for information on the maps.


Rob and Yuehong Dickinson

Email: webmaster@internationalsteam.co.uk