Penang Hills and Trails - Let the Good Times Roll
Another Sungai Pinang Loop

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 with (largely avoidable) elements of Grade 3.. 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.

The 501 bus service needed to get to Sungai Pinang from the north of the island had been withdrawn by September 2022. This makes this hike impractical for anyone without the use of a car.

We're back in Penang and as always horribly overweight. We arrived late on Day 1, we relaxed on Day 2 and for the first time ever we hiked as early as Day 3. Basically I was charged with providing something a little bit demanding but not too much which would end us up at Yuehong's favourite restaurant in Sungai Pinang, Our very few regular readers will soon realise that things are a little different this year. The map shows that we started in Sungai Pinang as would be normal for this walk, in fact we started some way up the valley at the turning for Rumah Batu (the Stone House).

Yes, we have succumbed, we have rented a car for the duration which will relieve us from the tyranny of the 10.30 501 bus out from Teluk Bahang and the 17.30 bus back from Balik Pulau. It will also allow us to explore areas of the south of the island which are difficult to reach even with Rapid Penang's excellent comprehensive services.

When we left Penang in March 2017, it was clear that the normal durian crop in May / June would be a flop owing to an extended dry spell. So it was perhaps not too surprising to see trees with fruit on them and young durian flowers. I suspect that we need only be a little patient as we were back in 2012 when durians were left to rot as there were too many to sell.

Yuehong likes nothing more than to wind up her friends and suitable pictures will soon appear on social media.

Back to the business in hand, the first task was to investigate what had appeared to be a bald patch on the hillside a year or two before. So we followed the road up and to the left. We took one look at the area above the abandoned houses at the end and quickly decided the best way up would be the parallel fruit orchard path which sets off to the right a little earlier.

It's a nice path for those who are out of condition, but it's best to avoid drinking this stuff if you get thirsty.

Instead of continuing to the end, we turned left part way, it's another one of those places with a boulder as a land mark.

The path soon faded away, but above was clear until we came to some residual rubber. Knowing what was left to do made things a lot easier, we scrambled up and instead of going for the summit, took a level to the right which looked brighter than most.

Well, it had been a little overgrown but not much and the other side of the hill was clear as expected. We could have gone down this path but that would have put us in the wrong valley.

So we skipped over the fence into the next estate and headed up the path which was more than a little overgrown.

Fortunately, we have equipped ourselves with two pairs of garden secateurs, so it was easy to snip our way through the shrubs and vines. Pretty soon we reached the end of the path where we had been before a year ago but turned back as Yuehong had a sore knee, 

Yes, there were some ferns but not many and part was former rubber terraces. We took it gently and in 20 minutes we were out in a familiar area.

These are nutmegs approaching maturity and the area looks a lot better than it did just a couple of years ago. This is where the road finishes and last year straight ahead was a newly cleared road which, after about 200 metres, led to a path back down into the valley we had started from earlier. I'm sure we could have bludgeoned our way through and down but time was on our side so we carried on up the hill. (Wrong!!! It's still there but 50 metres furthers south.)

On our right was a very small rubber estate and this is a pile of solidified raw rubber. The view down across the plains to Pulau Betong was much more attractive. As can be seen it was a dull day, but the important thing is that we had just a one minute shower all afternoon, the plastic raincoats had scared the rain gods away.

It's a quite young estate and well maintained, we walked through it until it finished with what looked to be almost real jungle. We were pleased to see a path down towards the summit of the round the island road. This place is also a large chicken farm and because we had come in the back door, as usual no one complained about our presence. Despite the sign, we didn't see any traffic lights.

The road was, though, correctly flagged as steep and we went down at a speed appropriate for these pets. What may not be apparent from the picture is their size, they are some kind of giant tortoise maybe 500mm tall.

If we had had any doubt about our location, it would have been dispelled by this view. The round-the-island road has suffered innumerable landslips and that's a standard blue tarpaulin. Behind is old friend Bukit Laksamana.

Down we went and as by now I expected we came out at the 'Art and Garden' entrance. Since the admission prices would have amounted to a round half dozen cans of Tiger each, we didn't go in.

Now should anyone want to repeat this walk, it would probably be best to skip the next bit and either wait for a 501 bus or walk down the road to Sungai Pinang.

In a perfect world, we would have gone through the gate next door, but that is an estate which makes it very clear that people like us are totally unwelcome. So being bloody minded, we walked down the road and took the first path offered. It looked quite promising especially as there was residual biker's plastic and an unmistakable 'piss off' sign from a farmer. 

It briefly got even better when Yuehong found a durian on the ground. This creature obviously had not read its text book because it had come down before it was ripe, a very long time before in fact. It took several minutes with the secateurs to establish that. Then the path evaporated... I did check with Yuehong and we didn't want to go back up to the road. This estate doesn't believe in wasting money on herbicides, we blundered onwards and downwards and eventually ended up at a small stream.

On the other side was the bottom end of the unwelcoming estate, in the circumstances we couldn't have asked for better. We'd seen enough overgrown rubbish for the day and climbed up to their road and under the fence into the next estate. Perfect! A few terraces above I could see a familiar power line and under it would be the path which would lead us straight back down to the car.

To be honest we had been doing shorter practice walks in the UK, so we were simply a little tired. I insisted on visiting the 'Magic Tiger Tree' in Sungai Pinang and then we had a simple but delicious meal in our regular place opposite the Chinese school.

Next day, we were out again and not very far away. This time the windfalls were top quality, any more and we would have skipped dinner. It would be bad manners to identify the area, but if you recognise the falls, then you'll know exactly where we were.

Never pay for a durian, the free ones taste much better by far.