One of the iconic hiking routes in HK. The old-timers used to consider it the stamina test for its distance. Increased difficulty by coasteering šŸ˜‰

See full screen & Garmin track.

After our unsuccessful attempt from Kat O I had the Devil’s Fist still pending. For years I had heard about the hiking path that connects Plover Cove Reservoir trail with this remote rocky feature at the end of the peninsula. If doing it in this mode, you could start from Tai Mei Tuk if you want to do an A-B-C route or Bride’s Pool for a slightly shorter A-B-A route. The path around the reservoir is clear and well hiked. With continued ups and downs, some slightly sandy slippery areas, and not much shade.

Eventually, you need to leave that path though, and get to the wilder one heading to the Devil’s Fist. Sometimes clear

but can be bushy and loose too. Looking back to almost all you have had hiked.

Carefully go down to the coastline,

find the rocky features and head back in opposite direction towards Bride’s Pool. You can find tons of guides and videos of the route, just Google it. Here one for example.

I was not very interested in that option. My guesstimation, considering trail runners’ times seen there + my own in the Reservoir path itself long years ago, was that it was going to be just a long easy training day for me, no more. So I wanted to make it a bit more challenging. Similar to what I had done before visiting all the Northern islands swim coasteer running. This time I wanted to have some company. Diana and Mateo were the initial people who I thought of. But both left Hong Kong for good before we had any good weather day. Looking for as much daylight as possible, but cool enough. Early spring looked like the best option. I asked on Instagram and started training in the already written about routes with Denvy, an ex-hardcore trail runner with quite some coasteering experience. Able to go fast and safe. Perfect.

March 12th forecast: warm air temperature 20-26C, water 19C, little breeze, no swell anywhere. Time to go! Denvy was not convinced with my time calculations. I thought we could do it easily in 10 hours (finally it was a lot less). But just in case at 7:15 am šŸ˜“ we were already in Tai Mei Tuk car park WC. Get everything ready and start jogging with the low sun in front.

Eventually, we arrived at the point where to leave the main path. Slightly bushy but clear if you follow the GPS. Just look carefully for the fork and head down towards the bay on your left as soon as possible. Otherwise, you will end up in a tiny lighthouse and you will have some more extra wading. Exactly heading down to the below decrepit pier and a little further buildings of the Lo Fu Wat pearl farm.

The tide was not ideal, full-day raising and already at 1.3m when we got into the water.

So we wade quite a lot, up to knee-high in several sections. Otherwise very simple scrambling and fast pebble beach areas. After passing the buoy fence of the police, we swim shortcut at Fung Wong Wat. A bit more than 300m swim instead of coasteering almost a kilometer. Perfect for cooling down after the run and the initial fast coasteering. Check the time… Well ahead of schedule already.

The next section requires a bit more scrambling, but still simple till we turned

into the Devil’s fist area itself.

In our case already the wrist was in the water. Tyler another day in the “Devil’s chair”, just on its right, with a lower tide. And behind the bacon-like cliff.

Since 2020 this spot became more well-known with tons of people going there directly with speedboats from Tai Mei Tuk or Wong Shek pier. With the increase of Covid cases and the heavy social distancing measures, this was not an option and we were basically alone here, but for a tiny hikers group that arrived almost when we were leaving.

After there is a tiny bit of traversing and a bit higher scrambling and turn into a nicer rock area.

The rocks here have very intense colors: red, yellow, purple, black…

A shallow cave. And once you turn into the bay the rocks become redder with pristine water below.

Very easy coasteering again. I guess doable completely dry. Although I kept my feet wet and Denvy swam several times to cool down and enjoy the water.

A few easy high scrambles and more red rocks

before arriving at the red bridge.

Dip into the water for the last time. Clean our stuff. Pack all the coasteering gear. She removed Five Ten shoes and put on her running ones. And running,

a bit of non-thorny bushwalking, hiking uphill, and more running on the main paths. I decided to take the shortest route that I already knew from the Northern islands swim run. Ending at Wu Kau Tang. Quite early. Easy to grab a taxi from there back to Tai Mei Tuk.

30 kilometers, of which 17 were on the shoreline. Elevation gain of 762m. Total time 8h20min with approx 40 minutes of different breaks. We were very diligent with the sunscreen, a full day under the sun with almost no shade at all. Reapplying approx every 100min. Drinking too. One long lunch break next to the Fist. Expect way longer timing though. Denvy is really fast coasteering on easier ground + with Five Ten grip, so every time I was stopping for taking a picture or slowed a bit with my NB Summit on smoother rocks, I needed to jog to catch her back. All the main hiking paths, but the uphills running. So for a seasoned coasteerer without rushing so much on the coastline nor running, a good timing would be around 11-12 hours. As mentioned before, you could take a speedboat, land next to the Fist, and do just half of the route. Way more manageable. I would suggest doing the Northern part if so.

Everything you should know before coasteering.