A few Saturdays ago I joined a group of hikers in the West of the New Territories, on a forest walk along the Route Twisk.
The route starts at Tsuen Kam Au (we took bus 51 from Tsuen Wan MTR station to get there), beside Route Twisk, and heads south-west through the hills.
It is a nice and easy walk on concrete and tarmac surfaced service roads with scenic views, but unfortunately we picked a foggy day – so we could not see the views, but it was still an enjoyable hike.
We shared the first part of the hike with some bikers, who used the road to bike uphill and then went cross-country downhill (how crazy – but they were all well equipped and dressed).
The path went up and down, like a roller coaster, with two steep hills but after that it was fairly flat and easy to walk. The first part took us about 60 minutes to walk.
Halfway along this first section, our guide speeto told us that Ho Pui Reservoir is off to the right, nestling in a deep valley. But we could not really see it, it was too foggy.
We continued to walk another 30 minutes through Tai Lam Country Park, which is the second largest Hong Kong Country Park, before we had a picnic break.
After that it was uphill again (just a little bit) and past bamboo trees and famous Chinese acorns (three pointed leaves – that’s how you can distinguish them from their Canadian brothers) which are one of the very few trees in Hong Kong that have red leaves in autumn and make for a very picturesque hike.
Our guide speeto told us that in autumn lots of photographers walk this hike with all their gear, just so they can take beautiful pictures.
For the final stretch (another 30 minutes) we walked downhill, passing lots of Saturday lunchtime walkers with their dogs. We glimpsed a view over Yuen Long and made our way downhill, next to a road.
The whole walk was 15km and took us 2,5 hours (excluding breaks) which was a nice speed for a group of Saturday hikers.
bluebalu 