4 April 2025
Lots of little mountains
Pat Sin Leng from Tai Wo Station
Many people say the Pat Sin Leng trail is the best hike in Hong Kong.
I have not done every hike in Hong Kong (yet), but I think it is the best hike I have done in Hong Kong.
The trail was fantastic, going up and over many small mountains with great views in all directions, even with the grey skies today.
As per a very specific request, the temperature today was about 20c, but on the top of the mountain in the breeze, more like 14, some people were putting on plastic jackets on downhill stretches.
I expected the trail to be very busy, but it was not, there were 30 minute stretches where I saw no one. Busy-ness (business?) was expected because today is a national holiday for tomb sweeping day, and despite seeing some tombs early on, I saw no one hiking with a broom.
Now for the very important and not to be missed stats -
15.09km - slighting more than alltrails suggested
4 hours and 55 minutes - but I did take a work phone call for 15 minutes
1,061m vertical ascent - quite a lot as the highest peak was only 659m
1,460 calories burned
23,928 steps, but the walk to the trail start from the train was quite far, I have 34,300 steps hotel to hotel
There are of course, too many pics, so lets go.
I was already excited because it was a hiking day, now I am really excited.
The first part of the hike was up a semi abandoned road past a recycling depot. I was worried at first that it might be a private road and I was about to hit a gate, once I saw this I knew I was on the right path.
A low down view, and still kind of sunny. It would get cloudier as the day went on.
After wandering through the jungle for a while, I arrived at an abandoned village, very interesting.
The village has been consumed by forest.
I will now head towards that series of small mountains, and climb over them all from left to right.
The path along here is quite tropical.
Getting closer to the mountains.
Deep in the forest. There were a lot of loud insects.
This is the Hok Tau reservoir. The path I was taking joins the Wilson trail here.
The dam. A small dam.
After the dam I left the jungle, and joined some steps. But the trail would soon become awesome.
So awesome that a silly sign has been put up. Completely ridiculous. I had a bottle of water and a muesli bar.
That mountain in the middle is where I was on the rainy day a on Monday.
Looking back towards Tai wo / Tai Po.
The views started to get great.
Some of the path ahead. I will go up to the left first.
I will go along all of those ridges.
This is the style of path along the ridges, it was excellent.
It is me. I look sweaty here, but it was not a particularly strenuous hike.
No steps! A rarity in Hong Kong.
I will end my hike today by that causeway.
The white statue is Buddha or Buddha related.
That is some of the path I had come along, and behind it, Shenzhen from yesterday. You can see Ping An tower.
Excellent trail the whole way.
More view, running out of things to say.
I will continue down those smaller peaks. All of those little islands are kind of joined together and part of Hong Kong. All of them have hiking trails.
Those buildings in the distance are a different city in China, Yantian.
Time to head down, but you cannot go straight down, you have to spiral around the back of the last small mountain.
Many more hikes to go on... but hard to get to.
The final descent was again staircases.
Almost down.
There were no picnic spots on the trail, this is the first sitting area I came across, and it is right at the end. Again I think this would be a rare thing in Hong Kong where generally every hiking trail has seats every 10 metres.
My bus stop, with the small mountains traversed in the background.
3rd hike over, this one gets the 'featured' tag.