Furthermost HK island with public transportation. Beautiful rocks, beach, and clear water. Easy hiking, coasteering and snorkeling there.

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There are few ferries servicing the island. Unless you want to stay Saturday overnight, you will need to take it at 9am at Ma Liu Shui Ferry Pier and return from TPC pier officially, read below, at 17:15 (2020) on weekends and public holidays.

Now (2020) you can book the tickets online. Not the clearest process if you do not read Cantonese though. Here Traway ferries web. Chose the island to go to. Day and time. Receive an email with indications to make the transfer (HKD 90 return). You have two days max to upload your transfer receipt to the web and needs to be done before Friday noontime. That way you can avoid the really long queues that form on the good weather days. Just go to the short queue on the left.

Approx 90 minutes ride each way. So a very long day and over 6 hours max on the island.

Once on it, you will see billboards with information of the main and super easy hiking path. We hiked it once with kids in less than two hours, as a reference. A few gentle uphills,

wood areas and walking on the flat dry rocks and beach.

You have two main coral areas (marked on the map). The Eastern one tends to have better visibility.

If you want to do it in the more adventurous way, as soon as you arrive at the pier jump into the water.

Or start walking on the rocks around.

Although the most interesting things initially, when heading East, are within the town itself.

The “real” coasteering would start on the South shoreline. Once you pass the very photogenic Ma Kok Tsui.

Just after the hiking path separates from the shoreline as you find this cliff.

You can scramble on it. Just a little further you find the “balconies”.

After the initial must scramble/swim section you can find a platform under the cliff. In low tide you can easily walk on it. In high tide and with waves, as it was our case when swimming around the island, it wouldn’t be so safe. Beware also of the loose rock areas under the balconies. The picture above is a bit misleading. Greg was 50m+ from the cliff which in that section must be 20-30m high. Boulders fallen from the balconies on the water level were each 1m tall. You don’t want to be here during/after heavy rain when the rocks can get looser.

A bit further the coasteering becomes easier and

you can even find a connection with the main path through the bushes. Marked on the map. Somewhere around here. See the hikers on the very left of the pic.

Before arriving at

Hoi Lo Tung Cave. Here a video with it and part of the coasteering prior.

Just after there is a little pebble beach

and a very peculiar geological formation.

Super easy coasteering (purple line) moving forward.

Completely dry where nowadays you can see quite some people walking on.

Next highlight is Cham Keng Chau. The “island” separated just by

a thin corridor.

Just after there is another coasteering section. Not as easy as the previous, but almost.

Another interesting geological formation there.

Before turning East and connecting with the crowds.

After the sign flat rocks and long beach.

Just around the start of the beach you can find Mau Kung Tung, a tiny cave with double entry. You can see the inside in this post (find 貓公洞).

Continue on the beach.

And in no time you will see several restaurants and public toilets.

Once you have finished checking everything you wanted on the island head to the pier. There might be earlier departures depending on the crowds. The more people the more ferries and also those ready to leave early. Last time there I saw ferries departing as early as 15:00, as soon as the first one got full.

Update March 2021: We coasteered the full perimeter in little more than three hours (Garmin track). Pics

and video

With lower tide , even with slightly bigger waves than forecasted,

it was really easy. No corals that we were able to see in the SE corner. It seems that were destroyed by one of the typhoons and now the sea bottom is just full of urchins… I talked with divers that confirmed that there are coral areas around still, but less than before.

Everything you should know before coasteering and open water swimming.