One of the several streams in Lantau. A big nice waterfall, several smaller ones and big boulders to climb.

  • Beauty/fun: 7/10. Well-known stream but not very visited as farther away from main road transportation points than Wun Lung Han, for example. The water is not super clean with villages just up the hill.
  • Difficulty (check this link if new here, this is not your standard HK hiking web): 7/10. If doing all the stream, as marked, there are slippery sections initially and several tricky scrambling areas later. Not very high, but can get difficult for those not comfortable with heights or when wet. Bring a rope to help weaker hikers. There are set ropes, but you can not rely on them completely. The whole route can get long too and therefore added difficulty point. The main section has ribbons but sometimes heading to different tributaries, so you will need to navigate bit carefully your way.
  • Map

And the Garmin track.

You could take bus or ferry to Tai O and from there have a little shorter concrete walk to the stream. But every time went to this area we started hiking from Tung Chung MTR. Walk on Yu Tung Road next to the high-rises and the frequent drying laundries

and NorthWest towards the Tung O ancient trail.

A concrete path next to the coastline.

Mostly boring, but you can always find beauty if you look around. This was exactly 10 meters from the path itself almost arriving at Sha Lo Wan.

Just 100 meters after Sham Wat pier you will see the very end of the stream connecting with the sea.

Here you need to choose if you want to do the whole route or keep on walking on the concrete. For the former, find your way through the local villagers’ lands or jump directly into the water.

Even if you try to keep your shoes dry

here there is no way. You will need to walk in the water and some rocks can be quite slippery.

Soon you will arrive at a dam.

The connecting point with the road that you would be walking if you would skip the first stream section. Go up those stairs, cross to the other side of the breach

and you are getting into a more beautiful area.

Boulders all the way can be big since now on. So get ready for some scrambling.

None technical, but challenging for beginners.

We stopped here for first rest and drone recording

although you better continue walking for some more meters and you will arrive at the highlight of the route

The best spot for chilling out. Swim, take a rest, check the fishes in the pool.

The waterfall can be quite more spectacular after several days of rain, which was not the case this day. And up we go again.

Climb up on the left of the fall.

Views from the top.

Moving forward the scrambling becomes more continuous.

Depending how much water there is in the stream you might see more or less clear forks, with different tributaries. You would continue all the time in the biggest stream up. There are two main points that can be misleading. First one is on the very beginning of the second section. After the dam there are (Jun 2017) tons of ribbons heading NE direction, avoid that stream (marked with the red cross). After the big waterfall mentioned before you will get into the next big fork (white dot with all the coordinates on the image, if you don’t know how to handle this go to the GPS Maps section). SW direction Ngon Sam stream (昂深石澗) up to almost the Ngong Ping village, a bit more technical (and nicer now, 2022, that the water is cleaner).

We continued NE direction. Using their hands continuously.

There are ribbons to guide you, most of the times the easiest way is obvious although not simple.

Deciding which was the easiest route.

You should be able to see the cable car lines above you around this area (down, under repair, when the pictures were taken), so even if you are really tired look back sometimes 😛

There are several exits in this area. Last time there we found that someone had built their own “changing room” next to a pool.

And seems that they had decided to remove the ribbons set previously (by Jean Christophe and others) on the right of this waterfall, to keep it for them or something… (?)

In any case, it might be easiest way out. Look for a path on the right. Otherwise you can continue on the left (we did so in almost every waterfall, NE direction). You will need to scramble a little bit more. The route has nothing specially relevant compared with the previous. Just some extra meters of stream. Finally you will find ribbons and (hopefully) a rope tied to a tree above. You can climb it without it if you have the skills and good grip shoes.

But complicated for beginners. So bring a 15m rope to assist in case (if with some extra prusiks even better).

And finally you arrive here. Happy in one piece.

Just walk on the path towards the cable car in Ngong Ping and from there take transportation back down. Buses, taxis, the cable car itself…