22nd May 2005 

 

After years of procrastination I finally managed to gather the will power (in other words I managed to drag four friends along with me - Jane, Tony, Joyce and William - from left to right) to take the 45 minute bus and train ride, then 15 minute walk, and then the 90 minute ferry to Tung Ping Chau.

 

Tung Ping Chau (東平洲) is just a small island (you can circle the island in about an hour if you don't stop for photos - as Tony keeps on reminding me) in the north eastern part of Hong Kong.  It's actually closer to China than it is to Hong Kong.  The most noticeable view of Hong Kong from the island is probably Sharp Peak.

 

After being stranded on this beautiful island (there is supposively only one ferry there and back) we started to make our way past the throng of people on the ferry pier and on to our circumnavigation of the island itself.  The water there was amazing - you would actually think you are in Krabi or Cebu and not actually an island of Hong Kong. 

 

For the uninitiated, the island is famous for its interesting rock formations, though people go there to dive and snorkel.  The latter being one of my selling points to the girls to get them to come.  There was actually a surprising amount of marine life (yes, I really am sure we where still in Hong Kong) including jellyfish and a bona fide horseshoe crab in the wild.  Having said all that, I still found the rock formations the most dominant natural wonder there.  It's something you don't see anywhere else in Hong Kong - be it the rainbow of colours; the pancake type formations; the almost rock climbable rocks; or just the sudden gap in the rock formations.

 

Anyway, after our one hour hike around the island (that took two and a half hours) we headed straight to the island's only piece of civilisation (ie restaurants) for our break for lunch and to get ready for some serious snorkelling.  Unfortunately, I forgot to put anti fog on my underwater casing for my small digital camera so there are no photos of any mermaids or us frocking underwater.  Though an interesting bit information is that Tony was later told by his colleague that the area that we snorkelled in is known to have a lot of sharks as that is where they go to give birth.  I guess we should consider ourselves lucky with only some scratches from the barnacles (not enough blood in the water to attach the sharks?)

 

How to get there (and back):

• You'll need to catch a ferry from the Ma Liu Shui pier which departs every day from 09:00.  See here for more details.
• You'll then need to catch the same ferry back at 17:15 from Tung Ping Chau.  Yes this is an all day trip.
• To get to the Ma Liu Shui ferry, just follow the throng of people from the University KCR station.  It's about a 15 walk.