Zim City

Paul Zimmerman’s cancelled Easter getaway leads him to scale Hong Kong Island Hong Kong Island coastal trail ZIM CITY

What did you do with a long ‘corona’ Easter break? Having cancelled plans to look up friends at the Byron Bay Bluesfest I decided on a hike around Hong Kong Island, keeping as close as possible to the coast. With the dry weather and excellent vistas it turned into a great experience. All I needed was water, a hat and extra battery packs. Taking pictures of the details and surveying ‘missing links’ the route took three days.

Stop 1: Hong Kong Observation Wheel

Leaving from the Hong Kong Observation Wheel in Central, I went west along the busy ferry piers, through Shun Tak along the shore to Instagram Pier. Up along Victoria Road and down into Sandy Bay rocky beach and the promenade along the HKU sports pitches. Here it was necessary to backtrack to the road as the link to Cyberport Waterfront Park has yet to be agreed on.

Fired up by the lunch it was over Waterfall Bay down along the 1,000 statues of Wah Kwai. After industrial Tin Wan I took a wander through the Aberdeen Fish Market and followed the promenade along Aberdeen’s colourful harbour. 18 South Bay Road, I walked up a proper trail over to Stanley. I went on to South Bay and walked the pig’s trail over and along Chung Hom Wan.

After enjoying the local delights, I found the Stanley East Catch Water by going up the stairs at the Stanley Mound Fresh Water Pumping Station and down to Tai Tam. Down along the bottom of the Tai Tam dam and up Hong Kong Trail Section 7 it is a flat stretch and one long set of stairs to the start of Dragon’s Back. Once there, I headed up to Shek O. There is also the option of taking a bus, or walking to Cape D’Aguilar and bouldering down the rock stream onto Shek O beach and enjoying sumptuous refreshments.

Along to Big Wave Bay, then I took the welltrodden route over Cape Collinson to Siu Sai Wan promenade. After the industrial waterfront of Chai Wan I reached Heng Fa Chuen’s tree lined waterfront. I headed up Shing Tai Road and found the informal trail along the south of the highway to get to Shau Kei Wan (we are waiting for the LCSD to open the Museum of Coastal Defence for hikers).

Stop 2: Big Wave bay

From there the Quarry Bay park and promenade took me to North Point where we are awaiting the construction of a board walk under the highway and completion of the massive waterfront park at the entrance of the Central Wanchai Bypass. Following the Causeway Bay typhoon shelter I passed the ongoing works shaping the Wan chai waterfront. I headed along the promenade from the Convention Centre and returned to my starting point at the Hong Kong Observation Wheel. Looking back, I realised what a fantastic asset we can create by connecting all these waterfront parks, promenades and trails into a 65km Hong Kong Island Coastal Trail.

Paul Zimmerman is the CEO of Designing Hong Kong, a Southern District Councillor and the co-convenor of Save Our Country Parks alliance.