The Hiking Activity – Maxwell Hill

One of the most refreshing and wondrous adventures of my life so far was the day my fellow students and I went for hiking at Bukit Larut – also known as Maxwell Hill which is 1250m above the sea level and is located 12km away from Taiping, Perak. An electrifying two wheels ride and arduous hiking experience has brought new sights and new adventures to each of us.

The hiking activity plan was initiated on 5th of January 2021 and executed on 9th of January 2021. A difficult rated Maxwell Hill has been our primary option as it requires a tremendous level of strength and endurance to touch the highest point. Izhar, Shafiq and Vinesh – the students who took the challenge.

The day started – everyone gathered at Vinesh’s house at 6.30am for a short briefing. We started to roll our bikes at 7.00am. After experiencing a beautiful and spectacular sunrise throughout our thirty minutes ride, we decided to stop at RNR Sungai Perak for a quick breakfast and to refuel our bikes. We continued our journey through a freezing cold weather and reached our destination safely and to our surprise the place was quite packed with a lot of vehicles. Without any delay, we started to perform some warm up exercises to loosen up some tight muscles.

The most anticipated adventure began. Eventually, we met a lot of hikers walking up and down the hill – an elderly couple greeted us with a pleasant smile and joined us to walk up the hill. The guy in his 50’s introduced himself as a football coach and shared some eerie stories about a Zombie house (Tea House) located at the hill which had our eyes on. After 3km’s of continuous walk, we were quite exhausted and decided to take a break at a nearby small waterfall.

The tar road became steeper after the third kilometer and we decided to take shortcut and walked through dirt pathway and even climbed up some concrete walls. We managed to reduce the distance approximately 100-200 meters for every corner and after a wearying walk, we made a stop at the Tea House (Zombie House) which is located at the 6th kilometer of the hill. The place is abandoned and looked quite spooky too. Without further a do, we continued our journey and enjoyed tremendous beauty of nature and quenched fresh mountain water. Throughout the journey we passed few spots where landslides has taken place in which one third of the road were affected. After 4.5 hours of walk, we managed to reach the hilltop station which is at 1036m above the sea level.

We were quite disappointed as the bridge and hill top view tower was broken despite being the oldest hill station in Malaysia and left unmaintained due to Covid 19 pandemic. British colonial officials used the station as a resort to relax in the past.  But that didn’t break our spirit- we enjoyed the mesmerising sight of the sea and landscapes. Apart from the beautiful scenery, an army of ant managed to catch our eyes. We took a video of how soldier ants monitors and safeguards other working ants. Nature has many unravelled values and wisdom which is very useful for our daily life.  We spend approximately 30 minutes resting at the hill station and started to walk down the hill.

Our downhill journey was quite challenging as we had light rain showers and our view is limited to less than 5 meters due to thick fog. Bukit Larut has a reputation for being the wettest part in Malaysia and the temperature ranges from 10 to 25 degree Celsius. To make the walk more fun and engaging, we played hide and seek for a while. We had a good laugh though. After 3 hours, we reached the base and decided to change our attire and take a short break.

Our stomach started to growl as we skipped our lunch – so, we went to Pelita Restaurant at Taiping Sentral Mall to recharge ourselves. The food was quite nice. Once we are full, we began to tour back to Ipoh with our respective bikes. Vinesh and I exited at Chemor while Izhar and Shafiq resumed their ride and reached home safely at Manjoi at 8.30pm. Even though there was jeep service provided at Maxwell Hill, our decision to walk up and down the hill not only tested our fitness level but also awarded us with ample of memorable and outstanding experience that will be cherished for the rest of our lives. Looking forward for another new stunning adventure!

Provided by YMAA Jenson Ong