Penang Hills and Trails - Bukit Penara Riddle
Playing Around above the Relau Pass

This is one of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang, click here for the index. This would be a Grade 2 walk, if you cut out the crap. As it was for us it was definitely 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.

Be aware that by December 2019, the path through the old rubber described below was at best 'indistinct' and at worse 'effectively impassable' and we decided not to attempt to follow it. 

In 2014 old friend and fellow masochist John Baker had flown down from Bangkok for the weekend to get some fresh air. I had tried and failed to blunt his enthusiasm the previous day with a six hour epic from Titi Kerawang to Balik Pulau which was part of our regular 'one day on and one day off' hiking cycle. It had been a chance for me to experiment a bit as Yuehong was committed to tidying up before we flew back to the UK at the end of the week. John was simply 'demob happy' as can be seen by his reaction to the suggestion that we might leave the hill top before it got dark...

So this was a route, if not an area, which was mostly new to Yuehong. We made our usual fair progress with buses 101 / 501 / 502 so we set out at 11.45 from the lower reaches (1.2km) of Jalan Tun Sardon once I had persuaded the 502 bus driver to set us down. I will spare John's blushes by repeating any more of the 2014 pictures (but they are all here). The lower part of the path is covered in our 'Stay Calm and Eat Kangkung' account. I couldn't use those pictures again as I have traded in the old Yuehong model and now have the brand new 17 year old schoolgirl version, what used to be called 'jail bait' when I was a teacher long ago, you can see that the dog is warning me off.

Anyway, since this is meant to be a serious work of scholarship, I should point out that this is where the trail emerges. It's a 3 way junction looking back, to the left (I guess) are more vegetable gardens on a minor peak and straight ahead is a very pleasant path which goes through fruit trees and old rubber before diving down to the same area we had come from. Our path is almost out of sight on the right should you want to do the walk in reverse.

This is the Nanshan Highlands, after the tank where the rubber gave way to vegetables we turned right (see above) and were soon at the infamous five way junction in the middle of what is increasingly becoming a wasteland and monument to unrestrained short term greed. It's by no means our favourite hiking area but Yuehong readily agreed that our route up was the best of the three we had tried. That was easy enough, but the next three hours dedicated to a bit of experimenting will best be written off to history. We shot straight up to the local summit, John would have been disappointed to find his tub empty. Behind was our target, the Bukit Penara masts which were to prove to be something of a mirage. We had them in our sights as we plunged into secondary jungle.

There was soon a multi-way junction which I had visited with John. My internal compass must have been playing up as straight ahead seemed a good idea. Indeed it brought us to a minor summit and continuing we started to go down. Alas, as we got to the first cleared area, it was apparent that we were significantly off course as we could see Paya Terubong below which is a no-go area for us.

So back we went and tried the next path. Suffice to say that was a waste of time and by now it was too dangerous to take the camera out. We tried the final path to the left and very nice it was until it finished in a valley full of ginger. I found a way across the stream and I do wish I had been allowed to show you Yuehong gracefully leaping it. We then had a spot more bother finding our way out of that one too and as a result we were now 'running' seriously late. With my tail trailing between my legs we had no choice but to revert to our previous exit path which would lead to the Air Itam to Balik Pulau road.

Fine, except that it took us over two hours last time we did it and our bus would leave in 90 minutes. Fine except that we had house guests and we had promised to bring them a take away dinner for 19.00. Fine except for the fact that Yuehong was taking them off to Langkawi at the crack of dawn next morning. So wipe out the smiles and you can easily guess what she wanted to do with her walking stick. Never mind that some guest workers insisted we take an alternative longer route that took us right past the Bukit Penara masts, I was in the dog house.

Eventually we came out right by the col on the Air Itam to Balik Pulau road. There was less than an hour before the bus and Yuehong gave me a 'look' and shot off down the hill at top speed, leaving me to do my best to keep up while my lousy knee tried to rattle itself to bits. By the time we got to the flat bit, I knew we would need an act of God and for Yuehong that came in the form of a young lady on a motorbike. Off she went to collect the dinner order and I resigned myself to a late and uncomfortable arrival back at the flat. Then my guardian angel came past and suddenly I was in Balik Pulau with enough time to collect a couple of Tigers which would serve as my dinner.

Ultimately, it was a brilliant walk and we'll be back to record it properly in the opposite direction, but it was a 'damned close run thing'.