Hiking trip to Hong Kong – overview

The inspiration for a hiking trip to Hong Kong began around December, 2015, when I read an article that listed the MacLehose Trail as one of 20 trails cited by globally experienced hikers as dream hikes.  I had visited Hong Kong several times previously, both for work and for pleasure, so I felt some general familiarity with the area, though I’d never done any serious hiking.  I was immediately captivated by the idea of trying to hike this 100 km (62 mile) long trail.  In addition, a special family that I refer to as my Hong Kong family had been living there for a number of years, and a hiking trip would provide the perfect opportunity for a nice long visit with them.

For various reasons the trip was postponed twice, and I resolved to do it in early November of 2018, during a relatively dry and cool time of the year.  After the arrangements had been made I had a freak accident that forced me to severely curtail my hiking plans — but I was determined to go.  I ended up staying 1 week instead of 2 and hiking about 6 miles a day instead of more like twice that much.  It was a wonderful trip!  This post is an overview of visiting and hiking in Hong Kong.  Subsequent posts will describe each day’s adventures.

Although I’d been able to get around the city areas on my own in previous trips – without reading or speaking a word of Cantonese – I was expecting to spend time in more rural areas in the New Territories, where fewer people would speak English.  And I wasn’t sure how clear the way-finding signage would be.  So I decided to prepare fairly extensively for my hikes, including organizing detailed maps as well as public transportation directions to and from various trail heads.

Early in my planning process I learned that there are four long-distance trails in Hong Kong, each subdivided into sections:

• MacLehose Trail: 100 km, crossing the New Territories from Sai Kung in the east to Tuen Mun in the west (10 sections)
• Hong Kong Trail: 50 km, crossing Hong Kong Island from Victoria Peak in the west to Big Wave Bay in the east (8 sections)
• Wilson Trail: 78 km, beginning in Stanley at the south end of Hong Kong Island and ending in Nam Chung, virtually within sight of the Chinese border in Shenzhen (10 sections)
• Lantau Trail: 70 km, forming a loop that winds across Lantau Island (12 sections)

All of the trails pass through numerous country parks, which are Hong Kong versions of the various parks and open spaces I’m familiar with in the United States and other countries.

This map shows the overall configuration of Hong Kong.  The purple areas on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon are the primary city areas and are where most visitors concentrate.  I’m pretty sure that the green areas are country parks; all of the trails except the Wilson Trail pass almost exclusively through country parks.  Lantau Island is the largest of some 260 islands over 500 square meters in size.

Map of Hong Kong

An important reference for my planning was a book entitled The Serious Hiker’s Guide to Hong Kong, by Pete Spurrier.  In addition I used Google Maps to generate paper maps of all of the sections of the MacLehose Trail, as well as detailed directions to and from the trail heads, which are generally at the end points of sections.  Another important resource was downloadable maps that I could access offline on my iPhone through an app called Gaia GPS.  Before I left home I downloaded maps that covered Hong Kong Island and the New Territories, and I entered waypoints corresponding to all of the section end points and other access points I thought I might need, for both the MacLehose Trail and the Hong Kong Trail.  After my accident I knew I wouldn’t be able to hike most of the MacLehose Trail, but I (correctly) thought I could manage parts of the Hong Kong Trail.

I began my trip with great excitement.  A few days prior, I’d browsed for travel items that might be useful.  The most important find was an inflatable foot rest, which allowed me to rest my feet on a convenient surface rather than dangling off the seat and cutting off circulation to my feet; I also have learned to wear compression stockings for long plane trips to minimize foot swelling.  The flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong was about 15 hours, arriving in the evening, so I planned to take a nap between the meal services.  Here I’m modeling the sleep mask I also found while doing my pre-trip shopping.  It says “will wake for food” – and I really did mean it!

A useful – and fun – sleep mask

After arriving I made my way from the airport to my Hong Kong family’s flat, which is located in one of the many apartment towers in the relatively new city of Tseung Kwan O, in the southeast part of the New Territories.  I think the overall design of the apartment tower communities is interesting.  Such a community typically consists of several towers, each perhaps 50 floors with something like 8 flats per floor. Many have fancy-sounding English names, e.g. with Park or Estate in the name.  To reach the towers you first enter from ground level or through an extensive shopping mall and go up a few levels from ground level.  An electronic key card provides access to the so-called podium level.  The podium is a pretty area with pools, landscaping, and shared facilities such as a community room and classrooms.  The towers are built upon the podium level.  When you reach the appropriate tower there is another entrance and key card entry to access the elevators to the apartment levels.

Podium area for a multi-tower apartment complex

Apartments in Hong Kong are famously tiny by US standards.  My family’s flat has a living area, kitchen, three bedrooms, and two bathrooms; having a second bathroom is kind of a luxury.  The family includes two adults, two children, and a full-time helper.  There is an entire subculture related to the helpers, many of whom are from other countries such as Indonesia or the Philippines and are helping to support their own families by living and working in Hong Kong.

I was privileged to share one of the bedrooms with the older daughter; the younger daughter temporarily slept on a mattress in her parents’ room.  The bedroom was not more than 8 feet by 8 feet, including a wall of enclosed cabinets just to the right of this view.  I got to sleep in the lower bunk and was overjoyed to have a couple of extra pillows available so that I could elevate my feet at night.  I even had plenty of room to stow my luggage, between a small floor area under the desk at the left and the window seat.  It was really quite a nice arrangement.

Bedroom in a Hong Kong apartment

This is a view from one of the windows, either in the bedroom or the living area (I forget which).  Between the nearby building towers was a partial view of Victoria Harbor.  I’m not sure what commercial activity is taking place in the foreground, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets developed into more towers within a few years, since the Tseung Kwan O area is developing rapidly.

View from my Hong Kong home base

On the evening of my first full day the daughters had a supervised athletic activity at a nearby neighborhood sports complex.  I found it to be quite interesting to observe a fairly high level of activity at roughly 8:00 pm.  There were numerous people using the track, though only a few are in the picture.  The area inside the track is typically used for track-related activities such as javelin.    The daughters’ group was supervised by one or more adults, and the children were all supposed to wear a certain outfit, which facilitated the supervision.  On this occasion a group of perhaps a few dozen wheelchair users gathered for a combination athletic and social event.  Numerous apartment towers are nearby, presumably representing the neighborhood served by the facility.  The picture is blurry, as I was completely unprepared for what I would see and had to hand-hold my camera using about 1/8 second exposure.

Neighborhood sports facility

As a last vignette of daily life in Hong Kong, this is a semi-posed picture of my family on the MTR (subway) at the end of an all-day excursion.  I found Hong Kong residents to be very adept at doing something on their smart phones while keeping track of the stops so that they would change trains or exit at the correct station.

Hong Kong MTR passengers typically busy on their phones

The MTR was my primary mode of transportation.  Nearly a dozen lines criss-cross Hong Kong Island and the mainland, connecting city areas and other communities.  The lines are color-coded, and in general I found it easiest to remember the colors rather than the Chinese names.  Directions to many locations begin with “take the MTR to [such-and-such] station,” and it was very straightforward to figure that out on my own.  Each car has at least two maps like this one; in this case the train was for the purple line, with a small green arrow showing the current leg and direction and red dots for the remaining stations.  At this moment the train was approaching a transfer station for the green line, and the newly accessible stations were indicated by simultaneously blinking white dots.  Note that each station name is shown in both Chinese and English.  Advisory signs are bilingual, and I think announcements were made in Cantonese and Mandarin as well as English.

Route map in an MTR car

My Hong Kong daughters helpfully pointed out that each MTR station has a specific color associated with it, unrelated to the color of the MTR line.  So even if you weren’t paying attention to the announcements or the lighted route map, you could use the color of the station to help you know where to get off the train, or perhaps to remind you when your station was the next one.  My home station was Tseung Kwan O, which was a red station.  I was pleasantly surprised to note that, in many cases, the door would open directly facing a post with the station name in both Chinese and English.  In addition, the nearby wall included the Chinese station name written in a stylized script.  I was very glad that I didn’t need to rely on the script names to identify a station, however!

MTR station signs: each station is a specific color unrelated to the color of the MTR line

At each station platform there was a sign announcing the next few trains.  This was at the split in the purple line and was at my home station.  I was amazed to see that trains to one of the destinations were apparently on a 3-minute interval, while trains to the other destination were on a (slightly) longer interval.  During busy times of the day, even with a 3-minute interval each train would be very busy.  I do not know of any public transit system in the US with such a frequent schedule!

Example MTR schedule

During my week-long visit I used several modes of public transportation, with the MTR being the first and primary mode.  On several occasions I used buses, which are often double-decker vehicles with a capacity of up to about 90 people including standing passengers.  On the Sunday of my visit, two family members and I decided to hike a very popular trail, and we found an impressive queue when we arrived at the terminus of the bus line.  I think we were able to get on the 5^th bus, all of them double-deckers that loaded up fully before leaving the bus stop.  At least half of the passengers got off at the trail head for the same trail that we hiked.

Bus queue for a popular hiking trail, on Sunday morning

On several occasions the trail head I was going to/from was served by smaller buses, often called green mini-buses, which are run by a centralized transit agency.  There are also red mini-buses, which are privately run.  One of the differences between the green and red mini-buses is related to the Octopus card, an easy-to-use electronic stored value card.  The Octopus card can now be used on the Airport Express, MTR, regular buses, green mini-buses, the Star Ferry, other local ferries, the Victoria Peak Tram, and increasingly at some restaurants and stores.  However, it is not accepted on the red mini-buses or for taxis.

Besides the Airport Express, MTR, and buses I used a ferry, a couple of green mini-buses, a couple of taxis, and the Victoria Peak Tram.  I took the latter downhill, since the queue was very long for the uphill trip; I rode a bus uphill instead.  Both trips were a bit like Mr Toad’s Wild Ride.  The uphill and downhill trams pass each other in the middle of the journey, shown here, the only place where there is a double track.

Victoria Peak Tram

I was pleasantly surprised at how good the signage is along the long-distance trails where I hiked.  At some of the trail heads there are very prominent signs, like this one at the end of Section 6 of the MacLehose Trail; the other side of the sign indicates the beginning of Section 7.  This picture also shows another characteristic of the trails: where the terrain is steep the trail usually goes straight up or down via cement or stone steps.  In the US and some other places trails tend to have switchbacks, so that the grade can be kept below about 10%.  With steps the grade can be steeper.

MacLehose Trail sign and steps climbing the hill

I found that the long-distance trails are well-marked at trail junctions, so it’s fairly straightforward to follow the intended path (if you’re trying to follow, say, the MacLehose Trail).  In addition, along most of the length of the long-distance trails there are mileage marker signs roughly every 500 meters (about 0.3 mile).  So the Hong Kong Trail has markers up to #100, the MacLehose Trail has markers up to #200, etc. I hiked portions of the Hong Kong, MacLehose, and Wilson Trails and found markers on all three trails.  The KK labels are grid references; if you need to call for emergency assistance, the marker number and grid reference would determine your location.  Note that the human figures at the top of the signs are unique for each of the major trails.  Also, in some places there are wooden 4×4 posts with painted logos that correspond to the same human figures.

Trail distance posts for the Hong Kong, MacLehose, and Wilson Trails

A characteristic of the trails that I’ve not encountered anywhere else is the close juxtaposition of the country trails and the city: it’s simply a characteristic of Hong Kong.  Here is an example: the trail passes through kind of a tunnel of vegetation, and on one side the “wall” of the tunnel is only a few meters thick.  Occasionally there is a break in the vegetation that’s big enough to show just how close an area of apartment towers is.  It’s also clear from this picture that many of the hillsides are pretty steep.  From the higher elevation vantage point of the country park there are often views of more distant hills, in a different country park.

Close juxtaposition of country trail and a densely populated city area

There’s one other feature I’d like to mention; I imagine it to be related to the very high population density in Hong Kong, as well as the ratio of people to open space.  In at least two instances I found signed dog latrines along the side of the trail.  This one, which was not far from a trailhead in a busy city area, had a designated area where dogs were supposed to do their business.  (I wondered how dog owners were supposed to ensure compliance!)

Dog latrine along one of the trails

About 5 weeks before my trip a super-typhoon named Mangkhut passed very close to Hong Kong.  It was the equivalent of a category 5 hurricane in the United States.  By the time the eye passed by, a T10 (highest level of typhoon warning) had been issued.  In the immediate aftermath, the public was advised to stay away from all of the country park trails, though there was a crowd-sourcing effort to document trail conditions.  Impressively, most of the sections of the major trails had been re-opened within a few weeks of the storm.  However, I encountered a few places where there was recent damage, presumably from Mangkhut.  Here is one example of damage at the beach at Big Wave Bay on Hong Kong Island.  In other places I noticed down trees next to the trail.  Overall, though, I was impressed at how little damage was evident, in light of the 150 mph winds and significant storm surge as the storm made landfall.

Typhoon damage at Big Wave Beach on Hong Kong Island

As I was preparing to return home, my Hong Kong family got me a souvenir mug with a short list of interesting places to hike.  I was pleased to note that in just a week I had experienced 3 of the 8: Dragon’s Back, MacLehose Trail, and Hong Kong Trail.

Mug showcasing interesting places to hike in Hong Kong

I only hiked portions of the MacLehose and Hong Kong Trails, so there are many adventures that I can look forward to experiencing in a future visit.  I will try to make it back sooner than another nearly three-year planning process!

Meanwhile, the next post will describe my first hike of this trip: Section 6 of the MacLehose Trail.