Hiking: Wan Chai loop

A few Saturdays ago I joined the Hong Kong Hiking MeetUp group for a hike around Mount Cameron – it was an interesting hike, as I’ve never done the full loop before and it also included some bushwhacking. It was totally worth it.

We started at the Hopewell Centre and walked up the steep slope to Wan Chai Gap. From there, it is just down the back towards the Lower Aberdeen Reservoir via the Hong Kong Trail (this is the same start as for the Wan Chai to Aberdeen night hike).

Then from the Lower Reservoir it goes uphill again to Bennet Hill. That’s where I had never been before – and I was lucky that I was with a group of experienced hikers, they knew the way to bushwhack up Bennet Hill.

From there we had a nice view over Aberdeen. But we didn’t stay too long, it was hot and we wanted to continue with our hike. We made it down to Lady Clementi’s Ride, which is an easy walk along the catch water to the Aberdeen Tunnel.

Of course, we’re not done yet and we have to go all the way up to Black Links, which is not easy! Especially not in the sun! From there we made it all the way up to Mount Cameron, which is just 390m high – but because we have been hiking up and down already, it felt much higher.

From Mount Cameron it is a great view over Happy Valley and Causeway Bay. It was incredible to see all the new buildings being erected – Hong Kong is a huge building site, there are lots of new developments everywhere and old ones are being torn down. That’s a real shame!

From Mount Cameron we had to descend by bushwhacking a little bit, then we reached Middle Road from where we walked back downhill to Wan Chai Gap and Hopewell Centre. The whole hike is about 12km and took 4 hours, on a hot and sunny day – you need to make sure to take plenty of water with you!