North: the KCR route

There is a whole series of possible outings to be made from the stops dotted along the Kowloon-Canton Railway as it wends its way north from Kowloon to the border with mainland China. As well as booming New Towns,you can still find traces of Hakka communities, the women dressed in conspicuous black baggy trousers and heavy fringed hats. If you’re on a day-trip, visits to the New Towns of Sha Tin and Sheung Shui might be all you have rune for, though if you’re really keen on getting out into some countryside, the excellent walks around Plover Cove Country Park will need a day in themselves. Sha Tin The first hnportant stop is at the booming New Town of Sha Tin, best known to Hong Kongers as the site of the territory’s second racecourse, whichis packed with fanatical gamblers on race days during the season (for details on the HKTB horse-racing tour, see "Happy Valley", p.731). For tourists, however, the main attraction of Sha Tin is the Heritage Museum at I Man Lam Road (2180 8188, www. heritagenmseum.gov, hk; Mort & Wed-Sat 10am-6pm, Sun & public holidays 10am-7pm; $10; free adnfission on Wed), About fifteen minutes’ walk from the New Town Plaza at Sha Tin KCR station (there’s a good location map, or pick up the museum newsletter with location maps at the customer service centre of Seiyu in New Town Plaza phase
III), you can reach it by following signs through the Sha Tin Park. The nmsenm is packed with permanent and temporary exhibitions; one of the best covers life in the New Territories across the ages and features a mock-up ora traditional fishing village.Another popular attraction is the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery (daily 9am-5pm; free), dating back to the 1960s, which is probably the single most interesting temple in the whole of the New Territories, if not in all HongKong, and the Po (or Bo) Fook Ancestral Worship Halls (9am-5pm;free).Unfortunately, there are illegal structures within the monastery, rendering it unsafe; tourists are therefore currently advised not to visit and the–actuary aromrd thirteen thousand - Buddhas may be re-housed in another monastery at some point. From the monastery you can also follow a path farther up the mountain to another terrace containing some smaller temples, although
recently this has been closed by landslides caused by monsoon rain.Tai Po and the Plover Cove Country Park Tai Po, a few KCR stops north of ShaTin, is not in itself an enormously exciting place but it does offer opportunities for escaping into some serious countryside. To reach Plover Cove Country Park, take bus #75K from outside Tai Po Market KCR station to its terminus at the small village of Tai Mei Tuk,right by the Plover Cove Reservoir. The signposted circular walk around the park takes about an hour. Alternatively, you can stroll or ride a rented bike ($35-60 per day from rental shops in Tai Mei Tuk) along the road to Bride’s Pool, an attractive picnic and camping site beside pools and waterfalls, or follow on foot the five-kilometre Pat Sin Leng Nature Trail, a high]y scenic,if slightly circuitous,route from Tai Mei Tuk to the pool. The pool area is very crowded at weekends, but during the week it can be pretty quiet. For more details about the many walks in this area, contact the HKTB.

Sheung Shui

Unless you’re planning to cross the border into mainland China, Sheung Shui is as far as you can get on the KCR - in fact, it lies just 3km south of the border. There are no special tourist sights as such, but of all the towns in the New Territories, this is one of those least affected by modern development, and
casual exploration in the Shek Wu Hui area just outside the KCR station will reward you with a great old market full of haggling Hakka women. Sheung Shui is also linked by bus #77K toYuen Long and KamTin in the west of theregion.

The east

The eastern part of the New Territories, around Clear Water Bay and the Sai Kung Peninsula, is where you’ll find the most secluded beaches and walks in Hong Kong,though at weekends they do begin to fill up. The best way to appreciate the seclusion is to come during the week and bring a picnic - you’ll need to put aside a whole day to visit either place. The starting point for buses into both areas is Diamond Hill MTR station.

Clear Water Bay

The forty-minute ride on bus #91 from Choi Hung MTR to ClearWater Bayal ready gives an idea of the delightful combination of green hills and sea that awaits you. Around the terminus at Tai Au Mun, overlooking ClearWater Bay,are a couple of excellent, clean beaches, and to the south is the start of a good three- to four-hour walk around the bay. First, follow the road south along the clifftop, as far as the Clear Water Bay Golf and Country Club (to use the tennis, swimming and golf facilities of this luxury club, visitors must join HKTB’s "Sports and Recreation Tour", which costs $430 plus pay-as-you-play charges).From the car park outside the club entrance, follow signposts on to the wonderfully located Tin Hau Temple in Joss House Bay. There is thought to have been a temple to the Taoist goddess of the sea here for more than eight hundred years, and although today’s temple dates back only to its last major
restoration in 1962, there is a venerable feel about the place. As one of HongKong’s few Tin Hau temples actually still connnanding the sea, it’s of immense significance, and on the 23rd day of the third lunar month each year (Tin Hau’s birthday) a colossal seaborne celebration takes place on fishing boats in the bay.Heading back up the slope, you can take another path which starts from the same car park outside the Golf and Country Club down past Sheung Lan Wan, a small village on the western shore of the peninsula. The path skirts the village, and continues on, forming a circular route around the headland back
to the Clear Water Bay bus terminal.

Sai Kung Peninsula

Some way to the north of Clear Water Bay, the irregularly shaped Sai Kung Peninsula, jagged with headlands, bluffs and tiny offshore islands, is the least developed area in the whole of Hong Kong, and a haven for hikers and beach lovers.
The only sizeable town in the area, Sai Knng Town, accessible on bus #92 from Diamond Hill MTR, lies slightly to the south of the peninsula but is nevertheless the jumping-off point for explorations of Sai Kung. It’s now being developed fairly fast, though it still retains some of the pleasant features of a
fishing town, with a promenade packed with seafood restaurants and fishermen offering their fairly exotic wares, plus additional seafood restaurants, arts and crafts shops, cafes and bars on bustling Sai Kung Hoi Pong Square. Small boats also run from the quayside to the various islands, the nearest and most popular of which is Kiu Tsui Chau (or Sharp Island), boasting a beach and a short hike to its highest point, although Tai Long Wan is also clean, quiet and beautiful.
The highlights of Sai Kung, however, are the country parks that cover the peninsula with virgin forest and grassland leading to perfect sandy beach,where you can even go snorkelling. Although it is possible to see sometbing 0f these on a day-trip, the best way really to appreciate them is to bring a test,rent a junk for the day with a group of friends,join an HKTB junk tour ($350 a day) or consider staying at the youth hostel on Sai Kung (see "Accommodation"). Access to the parks is by bus #94 from Sai Kung Town and #961k (Sundays only) from Diamond Hill MTP,., which pass through Pak Tarn Chung on their way to Wong Shek pier in the north of the peninsula. Buses depart once an hour during daylight. Don’t come to Pak Tam
Chung expecting a town - all you’ll find is a visitors’ centre (daily except Tues 9.30am-4.30pm; 2792 7365), which supplies hikers with maps (some are free) and vital information about the trails Of the many possible hikes, the MacLehose Trail, libera]]y dotted with camp sites, heads east from here,circumventing the High Island Reservoir before heading west into the rest of the New Territories. If you want to follow the trail just a part of the way, the beaches at Long Kc, south of the reservoir, and Tai 1 ,ong, to the northeast, are Hong Kong’s finest, though to walk out to them and back fi-om PakTam Chung takes several hours. The last bus back from Pak Tam Chung is at 7.30pm.

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