Penang Hills and Trails - Sungai Ara Explorer 3
Filling the Gaps in our Knowledge

This is one of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang, click here for the index. This is a Grade 3 walk owing to the number of (mainly minor obstructions) . 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.

In December 2016, when we had 'wheels' we had entered the Sungai Ara valley from Jalan Kenari and explored the south side in some detail, these are covered in our Sungai Ara - 541 and Sungai Ara - The Blue House reports. Later we returned with our friend Mike Gibby and in December 2017 we had another look..

Today we had delivered our friend John Baker to the airport and that left us an afternoon 'free' to explore an area where our knowledge of the paths remained less than complete. After two successive longer than average hikes, I did not need to be told to make this one a bit shorter. So we parked up below the little Da Ba Gong temple a short way up the valley road. My intention was to start on the reverse of the Mike Gibby walk and soon after the temple we turned right.

Our immediate target was the large open flat area which had presumably been cleared for a house that was never built. There's a clear path across it and down the opposite side where the grass is rather longer. However, it's not difficult to see where the path goes.

Now this first section was known to be a bit of a mess and it was far worse than before. We had to find our way round a couple of obstructions and along the way Yuehong was ambushed by the red ants which rather spoiled her day (and hence mine too).

After we passed the small hut it got a bit better and when we saw the gate on our left we knew we would now get a clear run as the orchard workers use it for access, we had seen this the previous time.

Some time before we coined the phrase 'Gibby trail' we had brought him down here and it was still a good example of its genre.

When we came to the Y junction, we could have gone left or right but in our visit earlier this trip, that on the right was in better condition so we went that way.

The next junction is next to this hut, it would have made a great refreshment stop with a pair of chairs but we were 'a little light' in that department today owing to an organisational failure.

So up the path we went, the first junction on the right is a dead end.

The path climbs up and that path on the left is the other one we could have taken earlier.

The path is at least 'OK' although when it passes through open areas, the grass around is longer than we would like. At some point we were joined by Hash paper, I would guess from the right side as we had seen none of it the way we had come. In that case, the best I can say about the ascent is that it must have been quite hairy and probably came from Lorong Kelicap. It's not a big hill and soon we came to what the bikers call 'The Blue House', which was my single refreshment break.

If we were to have gone into the 'jungle' to the left we knew we would soon have come out at the top of an orchard as we had come up that way before. Instead, we opted to follow the Hash paper down what had once been a clear wide path / road leading to the top of Jalan Kenari (according to maps I have seen eg https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/the-blue-house and alter confirmed by us). The awkward bamboos required a diversion and maybe we came back up again too soon as the path beyond was quite overgrown initially.

Yuehong spotted the point at which the Hash paper vanished back up the hill, it certainly wasn't a path and it wasn't in the spirit of today's hike to check it out. Below us we could see another small hill yielding to the developers, no doubt it's nothing like the near the 250 metre height which is meant to be their limit but it's another nail in the coffin. The path now took a sharp left turn.

We expected and got another U-bend but rather than take the easy option - it was clearly in good condition - we went straight ahead as we hoped that would take us directly back to 'our wheels'.

The path curved around the hill to the extent that we could no longer hear any noise from the urban hell below us. Unfortunately, it came to a halt, why was unclear, there were signs that there may have been a landslip ahead at some time.

Yuehong noticed that there was a bit of a trail up to the left and this was preferable to bashing straight on. Along the terraces bove, the nets were attached to old rubber and it was easy to go this way... 

 ... until very soon we found ourselves in a durian orchard, clearly the one we saw in the Sungai Ara - The Blue House hike. We just had to find one of its paths and the hut just below was the best place to look.

Sandy path soon became concrete path.

There was another astonishingly beautiful view.

Then we could see this hut and below a gate to the orchard.

First, though, I needed to satisfy my curiosity and I took a concrete path running along a contour to the left. When I came to a Y junction, I took the right fork downwards and to my pleasant surprise found the open gate we had passed much earlier. Well, knowing what was below it, we weren't going out this way. My only guess is that it is maintained as an 'emergency exit' in the case of the orchard getting an unexpected and unwelcome visit from the 'men in uniform'.

So we went to the gate, it was locked, of course, but we weren't the first to walk round the side. I don't know what it says in Chinese, but the English version is as boringly familiar and it is meaningless.

It's a wide road down from here, where it ends up, we left for another day again because we took the first available path to the left which soon dropped down to the Da Ba Gong temple and Mavis. (It actually ends in Cangkat Kenari 3 at the top of the ever expanding Sungai Ara urban disaster.)

Having visited the Yo Yo the previous day, we skipped over the hill, bought fruit in Balik Pulau and had dinner in Sungai Pinang. Considering it was a walk put together in a hurry, I at least thought it had gone quite well.