WONDERFULLY, much of Victoria Peak remains a wooded wilderness. A stroll around it still feels like a Hong Kong version of going on safari.
Tourists flock into the tram company's new Swiss carriages and shopping complex, but few discover the Peak's woodland walking routes. They begin at the Peak tram terminus, where a map-board details the area's country parkland Hong Kong Trail (starting here), joggers' exercise circuit and roads up and around the Peak.
The Peak's simplest walking route, from Harlech Road into Lugard Road or vice versa, is a level, 45-minute sight-seeing treat.
It encircles a tree-decked wonderland dotted with grand mansions and imbued with an ambience of ancient natural beauty.
It is a man-made ambience, as the terminus display of photographs illustrates. A century ago, Victoria Peak was a stark treeless area atop a truly ''barren island''.
Its verdant beauty is a welcome legacy of the colonial era when only a privileged few were allowed to live on the Peak. Their leafy lanes add sweet freshness to the mountain's breeze-cooled air.
One of the roadside banyans looks as old as the hills, with its 10,000 bristly strands hanging in a thick curtain whose ends were trimmed and knotted to keep the road passable.
