Hiking Trip At Broga Hill, Semenyih

It has been awhile since my blog was updated which was 24 days ago where the post was dated 10/1/10. It’s my first time abandoning my blog for such a long period. It is all because of the lecturers’ fault amount of assignments and projects that were continuously smacking me right on my face for the past 3 weeks.Finally, I’m able to write this post after 3 agonising weeks without blogging. It’s because I’m now back home for the weekend, leaving aside my busy student life in university. Sometimes its good to leave aside my student life and just sit in my own comfy room and just do my own things on the computer which are not studies related. (I drafted half of this post on 30/1/10 when I’m back at home)
 

Many interesting events had occurred in the past 3 weeks. One of them was a hiking trip to Broga Hill, Semenyih which took place 5 days ago on the 28/1/2010.

It all started when my coursemate, Sheat Wei planned to gather all of us TKs (TK is the name for students who are taking Computer Science. Don’t ask why is it called TK instead of CS, because I don’t know too) for on outing. To be honest, we hardly go out in a large group before. NONE! So this hiking/outing trip will be the 1st and NOT last for us TKs (more to come, I hope so).

At first, this trip was supposed to be on 27/1/10 (Wednesday), but due to the lack of people that are able to attend (having class the following morning), the date was changed to 31/1/10 (Sunday). I was quite disappointed at first because I won’t be able to go for the trip because I’ll be going back home on Friday. But luckily, the date was changed again to 28/1/10 (Thursday) because all classes were cancelled in the morning due to certain event that was going on in the university.

I was quite excited for the trip because it will be my 1st hiking trip with my coursemates and my 1st attempt to capture pictures of the sunrise (I’m still learning, kindly leave some advice yeah).

So we departed from our colleges at 4.10am and gathered at a Chinese restaurant near our university called 大树下 (“Big Tree Under” - direct English translation ^_^). There were 27 of us and 5 cars in total that were gathered there.

After taking some group photos, we started our journey to Broga Hill at 4.20am. The journey from 大树下 to Broga Hill was 40 minutes.

When we reach at the foot of Broga Hill, everything was pitch black. We couldn’t see a thing without the aid of our torch lights. But one thing that caught our attention was the sky was filled with many bright Twinkling Little Stars. It was such a beautiful view at that time (I will never ever forget that).

We started walking into the Palm Oil Estate at 5am without a single clue where are we heading. The only thing that we could do was to trust and follow another group of students that was ahead of us. As for me, I remembered that I was busy messaging. To be honest, I didn’t concentrate where I’m walking. I was just following all the light source that I could find on the floor.

After walking for 5 minutes, the floor started to be uneven and sloppy and we started hiking instead of walking. Starting of the hike was easy. Nothing really challenging though, except that we were walking on a slanting and uneven ground. It’s quite tiring though after hiking for about 30 minutes. Once awhile I could hear people talking jokes and I heard laughter followed by it. One of the girls nearly gave up along the way. So we encouraged tricked her by saying “We are almost there” (I lost count how many times I said that line ^_^).

Before reaching to the 1st stop, the terrain was a challenging one. Ropes were provided for us to hold onto while we hiked at a certain area. Along the way, 1 of our friends was not feeling well because she started the journey with an empty stomach. So some of us accompanied her until she regained her strength. The others (including me) continued our way to the 1st stop 3 minutes away from where she was.

Upon reaching to the top at 5.45am, I could see everyone’s face was tired and sweating. Everyone started drinking water as if they have not drank it for the past 3 days. While we waited for those who were still on their way up, we rested and took some group photos.

 
Some of us tried to guess where the sun will rise. One of them tried guessing it using the aid of the direction of the wind blowing (haha..).

My suggestion to them was to use the stars as a guide (didn’t we learn that in Science?)

But unfortunately, we didn’t managed to guess it because the stars in the sky was jumbled up and I’ve forgotten everything about my primary school Science syllabus (@_@).

We continued our journey to the 2nd (last) stop at 6.20am. Everything was basically the same. The terrain was not man made staircase but it was man made foot path (flat surface on a slanting ground). So hiking up to the 2nd stop was an easy one as if we were walking up a stairs. It took us 10 minutes to reach the 2nd stop.

A group of students reached there earlier than us were busy taking photos while we were busy catching our breath. After settling down, we took some random pictures while waiting for the sun to rise.

 
Coincidently all of use were pointing at the correct direct of the sunrise.

The sky started to be bright at 6.45am. Some of us were preparing ourselves with our camera and the rest stood there with the anticipating look on their faces. I started to be nervous about snapping photos of the sunrise. I was worried how would the pictures turn out to be. Well, here it goes (do give some/many advices yeah).

 
The sun was no where to be seen. But the sun really coloured up the whole sky with its lovely orange colour.

 
I tried to capture different angle and view of the sunrise.

The sun started to show itself at 7.30am, which was 45 minutes after the 1st photo that I captured.

While I’m busy capturing these photos, I heard many people saying things like “Wah, its (sunrise) very beautiful” & “Wah, so nice~”

I tried different way of capturing pictures of the sunrise, changed the setting on my camera and put what I’ve learned before this to the test. I can say that I enjoyed every moment of it and I’m looking forward for the next hiking trip :-).

That’s the view of another part of Broga Hill that we didn’t hike maybe because there wasn’t enough space for the 27 of us.

We started our way back down at 7.50am. If you see closely, you will be able to see the place (1st stop) that we rested before reaching to the 2nd stop. The process of walking down Broga Hill was not as tiring compared to the way up. Basically what we needed to do was just to hold on to our “brakes” and letting go of it once awhile to prevent our legs from our heating (I hope you understand what I meant).

We walked down Broga Hill in a slow pace to prevent any injuries from occurring. Even 2 aunties in their mid 50’s overtook us!! They were walking as if they were walking on flat ground (quite an embarrassing moment for us). From what I know, there are people who climb Broga Hill every day to exercise and even to do Yoga (no wonder walking down was so easy for those 2 aunties..haha).

I respect those 2 aunties because they seem to know everything on Broga Hill because while we were on our way down, a girl from another group was injured on the palm of her hand. So, the aunties walked around searching for something in the bushes and then she said something like this “Use this leave and put it on the wound. Can kill germs”. I was stunted for a moment. What else do they know ah? I feel like asking them “Aunty got anything can make my manly face nicer or not?” haha..

I really gained a lot of experience and memories through this hiking trip alone. Really enjoyed myself because it’s my first time hiking with a bunch of university friends.

For those who are interested in climbing Broga Hill, you can search the location using Google Map. You will pass by University of Nottingham on your left.

Keep going straight until you see this Rabbit Fun Land on your right. Broga Hill is just opposite of it. You can either park your cars along the road opposite the Rabbit Fun Land or you can park it inside of the Oil Palm Estate.

 

Clement’s Word of Advice (Hiking Broga Hill):
1) Bring mosquito repellent
2) Bring torch lights (1Person 1TorchLight)
3) Wear long pants (to prevent mosquito bites and to prevent any scratches on your legs from thorny bushes <--for girls)
4) Please do not wear slippers (my friend did ^_^)
5) Bring some foods if you are hiking early in the morning
6) Bring water
7) Most important of all, bring your camera
8) Bring an umbrella in case it rains (at least to protect the camera not you)
9) And enjoy yourselves hiking up Broga Hill.

On the same day, my Facebook was flooded with statuses and photos related to our Hiking Trip. 
I myself also took the opportunity to thank all my friends who made this trip so memorable and fun.  And the best of all status was this (below). I was really touched by this status and comments. It shows how true friendships really are. For me, I am happy to have this circle of friends.