An easily accessible cute little island in Saikung. A tombolo, little hiking, and a short coasteering route good for beginners on a calm day.

  • Beauty/fun: 7/10 A picturesque little island, with usually cleaner water and a beach. Some nice rock formations. Shortish. UPDATE Feb 2019: Typhoon Mangkhut hit the island hard, destroying all the facilities in Hap Mun beach and removing a big part of the sand in the beach itself and the sandbar tombolo. It will take some time for everything to be back to what it was. The coasteering itself is exactly as described. UPDATE Sep 2022: The beach looks similar to what it was. The tombolo is still not as nice as before.
  • Difficulty (check this link if new here, this is not your standard HK hiking web): 6/10 pushing yourself. You can scramble and traverse most of the walls, although there are some high and a bit tricky. The jumping entry and exits are clear, so if you are ready to swim longer sections it is significantly easier. The island is relatively protected by land masses around but waves might be the biggest where you will be coasteering (Southernmost tip).
  • Map

And the Garmin track.

(Mini)bus to SaiKung and walk to the pier. There are different boat companies running the route, departing every 15/30min on weekends. The return ticket from the beach costs (2018) HKD40, if you want to do a full round to the island (land and depart from Kiu Tsui) HKD30.

If you want to try coasteering on the South side only, you can take the boat directly to the pier next to Hap Mun beach itself. In our case, we asked the boat to leave us in Kiu Tsui first. Just next to it you have the tombolo: a tiny island attached to the main one by a narrow sandbar. In high tide, the bar is fully covered by water, so take it into consideration when going there. Video of the whole route on a partly rainy day.

Cross the bar, hike the little path on the tiny island and coasteer back through the North shore. Perfect to test the shoes and skills of beginners. The hiking path connecting with the South is very easy. Find your way upstairs and concrete initially,

a bit of dirt path on the upper part, and down again on concrete stairs to Half Moon Bay beach. Another video (not mine) with the way for you to see.

Just before arriving at the beach (in our case in around 30 minutes, instead of the hour marked), you will find your way to the Eastern shore. Time to start coasteering.

In the video, you can see that the swimmers tend to be way faster than those scrambling. 1 to 2 hours depending on how much you swim, therefore. There are several little caves and rock formations. Several cliffs from where to jump into the water.

Nice beach to end up, shower, and head to the pier for your return. I have swum all the rest of the island. Mainly is flatter and I guess significantly easier to hike on, although long.

Everything you should know before coasteering.

September 2022: Friends’ junk boat “parked” on Long Mong Wan. So I decided to coasteer all the Northern section in super-fast mode. Jogging the flatter sections and swimming the muddy ones.

Updated map (how to download to your phone offline maps).

See full screen & the Garmin track.

My recommendation today would be to do the red path + the West shoreline to see the pool area and return from the very same ferry point. Unless you want to do the whole island.

November 2024: Tyler wanted to do something easy including his family. Therefore we coasteered a tiny part with his 4 year old daughter and wife.

Once the kid said that she had enough, we went back to the beach and coasteered the South part counterclockwise the two of us in less than an hour. Garmin track.