Penang Hills and Trails - Titi Kerawang Inspection

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. 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.

We're back in Penang as from late November 2017 and my lovely wife requires me to come up with suggestions for walks on a daily basis now we have the use of a car and our travelling time has been cut in half. There aren't many new places on the island left to explore and in between checking them out, we need to look at old favourites to make sure that 'progress' has not completely wrecked them. Today was the turn of the durian estates to the north of the Titi Kerawanf Falls, an area which is so stunningly beautiful that we bring our visitors to it. In this case, at least, no news for the most part is good news.

We left Mavis by the fruit stalls and walked up the path opposite the Bao Sheng entrance.

The first tree was laden with durians but they seemed a tad short of full ripeness, those on the ground were true windfalls, representing an excess which the tree had discarded. When we got to the swimming pool, I checked out the path down towards the stream which was reported cleared since we last used it. And so it was, but the final open section had an abundance of 'ground cover', doubtless it would have been perfectly possible to go down had I wanted to.

Going up the valley, we took the right hand path towards Ronnie's Farm which had achieved a degree of infamy when the authorities decided that some of the clearance had been 'over-enthusiastic' which was a euphemism for cutting into a forest reserve. The gate was open but we didn't go up, it was best not to interfere, we had been up there before anyway.

Returning to the junction above, we took the left fork and very soon took this small path left which connects to the path coming up from the dog infested house above the swimming pool.

It's excellent hiking and an easy climb. We ignored the temptation which had been laid for us.

There's just one junction, we went up the hill to the right and would take the other path when we returned. We didn't follow the concrete right to the end, but just someway into the rubber where it did a reverse. Compared to our last visit, the picture shows it is a little overgrown now.

Back down we came, as the pictures show it was a lovely afternoon. I suggested Yuehong should look at the upper falls but she was too busy looking to see if any durians had fallen, but it was not our lucky day.

We made the necessary right turn and the path zig-zagged on down.

It was a very relaxing outing compared to normal in every sense, this picture came off Yuehong's 'toy', even after I have reduced the saturation it can be seen that Mr. Apple sees the world through unreal rose coloured glasses.

There's just one more junction to the right (ahead leads to near the swimming pool) and a further sweeping curve down to the main path in.

This is how the upper falls looked, despite the absence of rain in the last week or so, they were in full spate. It's rather easier to see them now a lot of trees have been washed away in the recent storms. Compare it with the picture below which was taken a year ago from almost the same spot. 

That was enough, it was never meant to be a major expedition and we returned to the car and had dinner in Sungai Pinang.