Wong Chung stream (黃涌石澗) is a cute short stream. The mossy rocks can be a little bit slippery, perfect for a completely wet route after rainy days.

  • Beauty/fun: 7/10 Cute waterfalls, old walled areas, the tree growing on the side of the rock, beautiful mossy green scenery. For better appreciation, you should go after rainy days. The stream can even handle heavy rain. The water definitely would not be as clean, more chocolate-like, but I was able to hike it up with no much problem.
  • Difficulty (check this link if new here, this is not your standard HK hiking web): 5.5/10 The navigation is simple, there is basically only one point where you could feel not sure which tributary to go up through (marked on the map below). Slippery rocks that require bringing really good grip shoes. Almost all the waterfalls are climbable, but there are side paths that you could use to avoid doing so. Some areas can have denser vegetation.
  • Map (how to download to your phone)

See full screen and the Garmin track of the loop from the bottom of the stream and back down through Big Brain, the green line for Tai No tributary and the red line tough tributary.

You could take a minibus or taxi up to (almost) the starting point of the stream. Usually, we just get any (mini)bus heading to Saikung from the South and stop on this roundabout. 30 minutes of road walk later you will arrive at the start, just behind the gate.

The stream starts quite flat. Beware of the slippery rocks though.

In this initial part, you will continuously see pipelines and some other water-handling structures.

There are ribbons (Sep 2019) guiding you through the dry banks, but often it felt safer, and definitely more fun, in the water.

The route is quite straightforward.

Here is the only confusing fork seen. 55 sec in the video below, the red line also explained later. Continue on the right.

In no time you will arrive at the walled area. Old village structures.

And a bit higher you have the first highlight of the route. Huge rock wrapped by a tree. The roots embrace it all around, growing diagonally.

Just next to it the first significant waterfall. I could not find any name for it, so we call it Buddha fall.

A little upper you will find another big pool and fall. You can either swim and climb on it or find ribbons just before it on the right so that you can scramble up the wall. Easy after the first 5-10 steps up with roots and somehow loose rocks.

Continue for a while and you will arrive at the bottom of Ginseng waterfall.

Which I would not suggest trying to climb completely with strong flow without ropes. This section is tricky.

There is an easy path on its left to hike on. You have a little pool on top and another waterfall. This little cliff, 4 meters, can be challenging for weak hikers. You might want to bring a rope to help climb it on its left side.

Moving forward the slope decreases. This double waterfall is the last remarkable spot.

Both of them climbable. The upper one more carefully.

Otherwise, there is a side path on its left. Little by little, it gets bushier.

Although none of the times there I needed to use the pruning scissors or else to open our way. Eventually, you will arrive at the connection with the MacLehose trail. Exactly to this point.

From here you could decide to walk a lot of different routes. The shortest out is marked on the map. To go down North towards City One or the bus stops marked before, grey line. A more interesting route would be to walk back down to the starting point through Big brain ancient path (大腦古道). Less frequently hiked, but with nice old village structures, more trees growing from the rocks, a temple. Video starting at 3m17s. The brown line connecting with the green.

Video with all the previous and a bit of what is explained next.

On the map I have included couple of other routes checked around. The most obvious would be to start at Tai No stream / tributary (大腦石澗). Instead of entering the stream next to the fence area, go up through the aforementioned green line. The connection with the lower part of the ancient trail is here.

You will be walking on an old stone path for approximately 20 minutes before you see the tributary clearly going down on the left of the path. Find your way moving to the right side looking downstream. There are steep downhill areas next to the waterfalls. I could do them without the help of the ropes/webbing set by previous groups. But you might want to bring a 20m rope, so that you can easily retrieve (shorter sections), to help weaker hikers in case they are not safe.

This downhill would be more difficult (6.5/10) than the main route. Partly on rocks. Partly scrambling down on roots. Eventually, you will connect with the main stream after the highest section waterfall.

After seeing it a couple of times I decided to try the red unnamed tributary. You can see the fork in the video (already mentioned 0m55s). Not recommended. It has decent water flow but soon starts breaking in different tributaries and the one I tried gets you to some messy thorny areas, before a nice, thin but long concatenated waterfalls section.

Over 60 meters altitude gain. After that, the water faints and you need to find your way through the dense vegetation. No path whatsoever. Even the intermediate paths that were marked on the GPS were really difficult to follow. Partly due to trees fell with past typhoons. Partly cause it seems that few hikers walk in this area. Even the hiking path on the crest of the hill had quite dense vegetation (Sep 2019). It is easy to follow though with tons of ribbons. In wintertime must be hiked with some regularity.

Everything you should know before stream hiking.

Any feedback, please, leave a comment below. Your contribution with the latest update can be relevant for other readers. If any information seems wrong we will try to check the route and update the information as soon as possible.

July 2021: We went again there after several days of rain, up to Tai No waterfalls, back down again, and up till MacLehose climbing most of the waterfalls in. I brought a 20-meter rope to secure the ascend to “Buddha Waterfall”. Ginseng climbed but tricky, significantly longer rope required to have any help.

After a few of us went down Mouse Farm stream. Full Garmin track.