From 1935 to 1967 tungsten was mined under Needle Hill. Remains of the buildings, tunnels, and others are still there within the growing vegetation, ready to be explored.

  • Beauty/fun: 6/10. Tons of tunnels to walk through, crystalline water pools, old structures.
  • Difficulty (check this link if new here, this is not your standard HK hiking web): 6.5/10 without trying any of the deep descends or climbs. This is one of the places where you are going to be closest to practicing speleology in Hong Kong. This same route outdoor would be classified as a 3/10 wet stream hiking: some loose terrain, several deep holes that you need to scramble around, water areas… But you are doing it underground! I’m not trying to sound like Mr. Obvious, but without proper gear and care you might get into serious trouble here.
  • Map

See full screen & Garmin track of a long day exploring around, including all the previous and a bit more.

The closest MTR station is Tai Wai. From there you could walk up to the Main Dam of the Lower Shing Mun Reservoir. Usually, we take a taxi to avoid this initial concrete 2 km. If you wanna walk them, I would suggest you “hike” on the North side via Mei Tin road.

Once in the dam, you still have some more concrete until you arrive at the Adit 5 area. Find the way up the stairs next to the intersection of the two concrete paths. In little more than 50m, you should be able to find the entry.

Most of the year there is some water already here. Continue and you will start finding forks. Some will take you to galleries that have deep holes. For example here, on her right.

Loose rock, old rusty structures set to help… Be cautious. Actually you could skip this side, as there is a dead end just a little further.

On some other galleries the water was almost waist high. In February… In wet season I don’t know how high it can be.

You can see several old structures: stairs, beams, etc.

It is very interesting to guess the working conditions in that environment.

Once out, go up a little bit North on the concrete and find the way down to the stream on your left. Entry to Adit 4.

The start was really muddy.

A little bit less interesting. Nevertheless, the different “pools” and others are quite picturesque.

Once we were in exploring mode we wanted to check other things in the area. Up the green line to see an old water collection pool (not especially interesting) and the “crag”: clay rock structure to scramble up and down. Here looking towards Lion Rock.

There are tons of ribboned paths up there. Choose yours considering how good grip you have for sandy terrain. There are several small tunnels on your way down. Also at least one with a deep gallery (marked on the map as Adit x). To explore it safely you would need to have full climbing gear with you and long ropes. Our 20m one tied on the tree at the entrance was not good enough. Some pics of that area in a previous day.

Continue down on the blue line, going to the Adit 3.

Here its entry.

From the start, you can feel the wind. I guess that this 3rd Adit is connected with the upper tunnels, maybe Adit x. We could see a gallery heading really high up, at least 20 meters high. You would need tons of gear and really good climbing skills to explore it safely.

In any case, even without doing so it is really interesting. Might be the best of all visited. You have all kind of structures. High galleries. Tight corridors to squeeze through.

Also some dangerous areas, like this one.

That you can avoid. Here buddies deciding not to follow me 😀 Deep hole between us, even if it does not look like in the pic.

The others galleries are less technical.

And you can find several pools with transparent water, filtered through the hill above.

Out again and we went to the Adit y. The access path might be a little bit misleading. There is an arrow on the floor (circled on the pic) just a few meters before the real “path”, exactly where he is.

The Adit y itself is short

unless you are ready to climb down sandy slippery walls. Visited the previous time, also in the Instagram pictures above. With the skeleton of the dog (I think) and we navigating tight corridors. It is quite unstable: a 3 kg rock fall onto my quad. Injuring it seriously. So, as I have repeated several times already, be careful!

The entry to Adit 2.

As soon as we get into it we could feel way warmer. No wind in this one.

Very comfortable temperature vs the outside winter. What can you find in those conditions? Snakes enjoying the natural heating… In our case, a mountain water snake (watch the video down). It is not venomous, but scary enough for the guys to skip this tunnel.

The snake aside, this is an easy one. Wide and with several concrete structures to hold the water

or stack stones.

Going up again, connection with the main blue line path.

Adit 11 is very low initially. Around 1 meter high from the start. Visited on 2020.

There was some water initially too. So squatting in carefully.

In it gets a little taller and are double tunnels, one above the other, that you can climb carefully to.

Smallish anyhow. Coming out with the water chocolate like after the big group had passed in both directions.

I did not mention, but to get to this Adit 11 you will need to find the entry hiking on a steep slippery slope, not so obvious the first time. Picture for your reference with Summer going down from where you should climb too.

Adit 8 also checked in 2020. This one is a bit more difficult to locate. It is not in the main path and if you follow the ribbons you might not see it (too many ribbons again in that area). Check the GPS position in the map + watch the video down for easier reference. If you pass the entry, go back again and try to find similar pebble piling, they come from the rock extraction in the mines above. Finally, you will arrive at here.

It looks one of the most dangerous and not only because of the sign inside.

You can see several places where the tunnel ceiling has partly collapsed.

The beam structure looks flimsy too.

Some areas look sturdier and deserve some checking.

A video with quite some of the tunnels visited first time bringing several friends.

There are quite some options to end up your day. You can go through the mentioned dam to the minibus stop next to the Shing Mun country park visitor center (marked on the map). Walk down to Kwai Hing station through stairs and concrete. Or hike down back to the starting point through the pipelines next to the lower reservoir.

Video by Ina of a day in 2020 where we visited, in order, Adits 5, 8, 3, and 11. A good option. Garmin track. As you can see the government has fenced some of the adit entries.

In 2021 finally, we went to Adit 1. Go down the dam to the very bottom. Turn left. Pass next to the upper reservoir’s overflow outlet (a quite frequent Instagram pic these days).

Continue for quite a while at the same level and you eventually will find it. A panorama as a reference. You can see the dam far away and the entrance is just on the right among the trees.

Getting into.

Dry mud initially.

But soon gets wet and dirty.

In our case, we got deep into mud almost till knee-high and water up till waist. The mud section is relatively short. Sallow water for a little longer. This adit only offers a big long (longest of all, I guess around 800m) straight tunnel with little else. A few bats. At the very end some loose rocks on the side and no more.

Going back the same way again in the water (peculiar black mark on the walls for a long while)

and mud. Our dirty dirty trousers, socks, and shoes once out.

Adit 6, next to 5, also visited.

A small straight tunnel with some water and little to see.

Everything you should know before caving.