Penang Hills and Trails - A Swift Half
Yet Another Visit to Sungai Rusa Heights

This is one of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang, click here for the index. This is a Grade 2 walk, it follows up our Sungai Rusa Heights and Sungai Rusa Heights and More reports.

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

The 501 bus service needed to get to Titi Kerawang had been withdrawn by September 2022. This makes this hike impractical for anyone without the use of a car.

We'd come off a blockbuster walk in the hills above Batu Ferringhi two days earlier and needed something not too strenuous which would work up an appetite and allow us to pay a visit to Yuehong's current favourite restaurant in Sungai Pinang afterwards. So this was a half day's walk which we could do off the 13.10 501 bus from Teluk Bahang and meant we could have an extra lie in. However, it did mean that we had exactly 2 hours and 40 minutes to complete our hike before the next 501 bus at 15.50.

We started at the security gate on the road below Titi Kerawang, which amazingly for Malaysia is still working three years after this picture was taken when it was brand new. It has since acquired yellow hatching on the road and a 'No Bicycles' sign and Yuehong has lost about 40 pounds in weight. We've done this road many times and it was surprisingly shady in the middle of the day. It's lined with nutmeg and durian, the former are doing well but we saw but a single durian tree in flower. Later the chef at our restaurant who lives up here (lucky man) told us there would be no durians this year. That spells economic disaster for any farmers who do not have other crops, clearly it is related to the extended rainy season. Basically we followed the electricity poles all the way to the end, that meant turning right at BJTB 35 and left at BJTB 44. When we got to BJTB 51 (picture below) we knew we were nearly there:

Across the valley is the rubber estate we had christened 'Sungai Rusa Heights. Now the rains have virtually finished, the ground is turning brown and the rubber trees on the ridge are losing their leaves. We could see the house where the road ends, no one lives there any more but it is used as a store for materials for the estate.

We followed the path that continued behind the house to where it was being repaired. Beyond, tt climbs slightly until it ends.

We knew we had to continue into the next rubber estate which is untidy by comparison and just follow one of the immediate terraces until we came out on a tappers path.

We've been here twice before, it's an 'old' path which means it's quite gently graded and kind to old knees.

After exactly three zig-zags (6 sharp bends), we could see a small house below us. Yuehong had forgotten but she had discovered that there were steps down to it if we followed the terrace that led behind it.

Now my flimsy excuse to come back here was to check out a of path which went downhill from here, the non-resident farmer had told us it went to Sungai Rusa. Of course, we could certainly get down there through the rubber above, I knew the left path at the first junction was a dead end and now going not very far down I found the other one was a dead end too. I had hoped it would join our regular route up from Sungai Rusa but instead it ended above what I know to be a wild rocky area, there was absolutely no temptation to try to continue down.

At which point we should have walked past the shelter with its yapping dogs and climbed over the fence above the locked gate because our bus would come down the road in exactly 60 minutes time, but there was a final path leading upwards. It was too tempting to resist, possibly it would lead to the upper road we had used earlier, especially as we had seen a path going down just before the final house. Indeed, it was a minor fruit orchard classic as it climbed up.

Then it finished, a reminder that durian farmers prefer to have just one way in (and hence out) to discourage traffic. We didn't fancy going all the way down again and kept climbing 'off piste'. Looking for the optimum route I wasn't always successful and at one stage , Yuehong actually appeared one level above me.

"Just where are you trying to get to?" she asked innocently. I indicated straight up and just to the left, off we went and, of course, we hit the rubber I had seen on the skyline. 

Problem over, we just followed the terrace round and came out just below the 'road works'. This diversion had frittered away.20 minutes, leaving us just 40 minutes and 57 electricity poles to pass back down the way we had come up. In the old days, that would have been 'demanding', these days it required just a slight increase in pace. Not for the first time as we went down the final steep part, I was grateful to the cod liver oil capsules.

We actually had 10 minutes to spare before the bus from Teluk Bahang came, Yuehong got her usual bargain banquet and I got to refill our fridge. I suspect that the next time we come here will be to celebrate extending our knowledge of the area by walking from Jalan Chai on the outskirts of Balik Pulau to the Titi Kerawang road, that's much more attractive than finishing the walk in Air Puteh (Botanica) or Sungai Rusa. You can readily identify that route from south to north on the map below.