Winter, I was glad to realise, doesn’t put a stop to stream trekking in Hong Kong. The only difference is that one doesn’t get to jump into the rock pools. On 10 Dec, I hiked along Nei Shan Stream in Lantau Island with some friends. It’s a relatively easy stream to hike with rocks that are easy to scale. To enter the stream, go through San Tau Village which can be reached easily by taking a 30-minute walk from Tung Chung.


You’ll pass the water pipe and this little ‘wall’ very early on in the stream trek.


This stream has many pools that you can go into for a dip in summer. Surprisingly there’s still water flowing in the dry season. As there are no households upstream, the water in this stream is very clean and clear.


One of the taller waterfalls along the stream


We had to conquer this rather steep and tall cliff – my estimate is that it was about 50m high. Either scale up directly where the water flows in summer, i.e. in the middle, or scale up on the right side via the forested area.


This particular pool looked very magical with the sunlight streaming through the forest canopy to give the water a bluish-green tinge. The pond skaters moving on the water surface were like little stars flickering away.


At around an altitude of 450m you will reach the Donkey Trail that will take you to Ngong Ping (where the Big Buddha is) if you turn right. Turn left and you’ll head back to Tung Chung. The fastest way back to civilisation would be hiking to Ngong Ping and taking a bus back to Tung Chung from there.


We, however, took another route back down to Tung Chung. We went via a mountain path that saw us bush-whacking our way all the back down to San Tau Village. We then walked back to Tung Chung from there.
Overall, Nei Shan stream is one that would be pretty easy for beginners to handle. The not-so-fun part is getting out of the stream and back to civilisation. It’s quite a long way to get back to Tung Chung. Though there are many pools, they are not really that big. I might return in the summer to see if it looks any different!