David Robinson

Dec 16, 20226 min read

Hiking Kepayang hill, a goat restaurant and mangrove beach in Seremban

There are several places in the Seremban 2 area highlighted on google as good hiking spots and hiking is a big pastime for a lot of Malaysians- they often just do it later in the evening than we do as it is a lot cooler! One of the biggest hiking spots nearby is Kepayang hill and there is a whole facebook group dedicated to hiking there (Kepayang Hill Just Hike). This is a large densely forested hill that is surrounded by new build estates. It has a full hiking trail map and 31 different trails varying from tarmac road up to the top, rocky/muddy but easy trails as well as lots of steep trails that involve climbing using ropes. There are also many different entrances so you can vary your routes.

After a very lazy morning watching netflix and playing games we fancied a proper walk so we headed here for an afternoon hike. On AllTrails I had seen where some people parked and a couple of 2 hour hikes outlined. We managed to park in a nearby housing estate and found entrance number 4. This took us up a short tarmacked road to a water tower where then a small muddy footpath led next to the fence and round the back to join the hiking trails. We wanted to try to climb our way up gradually on the hill so took the path to the right to slowly wind our way up the sandy footpath through the jungle. There were lots of monkeys playing above our heads in the canopy as we walked past some of the steeper trails up.

There are various signs to show which the trails are and these also have numbers that correspond to the hiking map. This was our only way of figuring out where to go as the navigation on All trails wasn’t working. As the route split towards the top we took a middle track where we climbed up some tree roots before taking a path off to the right of the hill. This descended down a bit whereas we were trying to get to the top. So at the next junction we took a path that was steadily going up, enjoying watching more monkeys playing in the canopy. Not convinced about where this was leading to, when we came (Birdcage n.22) straight up we decided to take this path and went clambering up the steep side of the hill using the ropes. We were rewarded by finding the top of the hill and were now above where the monkeys had been. We found the Kepayang hill sign, a fun laughing buddha and wishing tree as well as great views and a swing. It provided a good opportunity for Dave to get some fun shots with the drone too whilst we ate snacks and had much needed water.

At the top we also explored the small temple, other views and the large temple that was very colourful with lots of interesting tiger toys everywhere. Instead of going back the same direction we headed down the tarmac road from the temple and tried to join one of the outlined paths. We found the sign for this but there were lots of felled trees blocking the entrance. Instead we continued down the road until there was a small trail on one of the corners. This led us on a small path along the side of the hill (Tiger trail n.11) and we ended up heading back upwards- not initially what was intended! This path clearly hadn’t been walked in a couple of days as there were spider webs as we walked through the paths. We did also see an absolutely huge ant- a malaysian forest ant apparently. We believed the path we were on would eventually come out to the first initial junction we had taken when we started the walk. However we didn’t find this and instead were faced with going up steeply or going down steeply. As we were being bitten by all the mozzies we decided to head down one of the steeper trails (Banana trail n.4)- having to use the ropes backwards almost abseiling on the paths. This did eventually lead us to the path at the bottom where we started. We managed to get lost and have a proper adventure on this random hill in Seremban 2 in only a couple of hours! Can see why it is a popular spot as you could find different trails every time. Once showered and having walked/fed Coco we ordered more Nasi Kandar to fill us up for dinner after burning lots of calories earlier!

The following day we went to check out one of the nicer looking coffee shops in the Centrio area- ‘W’ cafe. This had a very clean, minimal scandavian design with cosy lighting. We ordered flat whites which were lovely (12 MYR). Despite having delicious looking sourdough sandwiches and pizzas we opted to have a cheaper lunch to try to stay more on budget. So instead we headed to Mydin food hall where we went back to Fatima Chew Street for more Penang Kuey Teow and to try their BBQ pork pan mee (8.50/7.50 MYR).

Photos: W cafe, mydin food court for kuey teow and bbq pork,

After a quieter day we wanted to go out for another day trip towards the Port Dickson area. On the way to where we were going I had stumbled across a restaurant that looked interesting on google- Kafe Kambing Kaw. This was a goat restaurant but looked like it had a really cool design and the range of food sounded brilliant. As we turned off of the small main road towards the Army museum onto a narrow one way residential street we wondered where we were going. But as we rounded the corner we saw the restaurant which was absolutely packed with cars and people. There were people queuing for lunch on a Thursday so we knew it must be good as we hadn’t seen that anywhere else! After getting the last parking spot we joined the queue where we were given a menu and told a range of things had already sold out like the burgers, nachos and nearly the nasi lemak which is all very well known and popular. The waitress recommended sandwiches and a quesadilla as also being highly sought after so we went for a goat toasted sandwich and a goat quesadilla (40MYR with fries and drinks too). The food was really unique but incredibly tasty and the 2 dishes had completely different flavours- one more marinated charred meat and the other a more bbq sauce marinade.

Pleasantly surprised by our lunch we drove a couple more minutes to the Army Museum in Port Dickson. This is free to enter so we thought we would check it out. There were lots of things to see in terms of vehicles, equipment, uniforms etc. We did learn a bit about the history of the area until about half way around where the English just stopped on the signs. But you really can’t complain about it seen as it is free!

Our last stop of the day was to a nearby beach peninsula- Pantai Cahaya Negeri. This had a large carpark with 2 small beaches either side of the peninsula. There was also a boardwalk across to a mangrove island, that also had a viewpoint. This made a pleasant change of scenery and the beach at the boardwalk was small but the nicest we had seen. It was backed on by forest for shade and with the water very calm as it was surrounded in a bay. We went for a wander over to the mangroves taking in the view and putting up the drone for some fun beach and sea shots. By the time we had come back the tide had gone out and we weren’t really feeling trying to swim so we grabbed a refreshing ice cream from a local seller (cool box on the back of his motorbike) before making the hour-long journey back to Seremban as we were avoiding the toll roads. In the evening we headed back to ss5 for more marmite chicken and sweet and pork sour with the good excuse of needing to film it for a video!

We had to do a lot of admin the next day trying to sort out appointments for transferring my NZ working holiday visa to my new passport, looking at various flights and train options for after our housesit. This also meant finding a print shop to print out documents that we needed. Thankfully we found one nearby and it was really easy to get documents printed for a few ringgit. It also gave us a good excuse to try the local bubble tea shop nearby. This was just a takeout location so we got our brown sugar milk tea bobas and took them back to the house. For a cheap and tasty dinner we went back to the uptown s-Nine food court to try some different dishes. Dave ordered dumpling noodles (9 MYR) and I had a claypot sizzling Kung Po Pork Belly (12MYR) which was very rich and delicious.