The furthermost route in Lantau. The very last spot for me to check in its coastline. Perfect “ending”: nice rocks, good scrambling & dolphins!
- Beauty/fun: 7.5/10 varied color and structure rocks, nice long beaches, tons of options for fun scrambling and traverses, possible (rare) dolphin sighting. But quite some trash and murky water potentially too.
- Difficulty (check this link if new here, this is not your standard HK hiking web): 7.5/10 very varied rocks, quality (a few 💩y sections) and difficulty wise. Potential for high scrambling and fun but demanding traverses. Being on the West, it is usually well protected from main swell and wind waves. So you could cheat easily with further swims. Beware of tidal currents in any case. Potential early exits after each main section, 4 total. Long, unless you take any shortcut, taxi boat included.
- Map (how to download to your phone offline maps)
See full screen & Garmin track.
A long time ago that I had Peaked Hill Island on my to-do list. Eventually, in a too big swell (in the East) day we decided to pay all that area a visit. Calm forecast there.
Meet in Tung Chung early morning (before 9 am to avoid the huge bus queues) and head to Tai O. From there we hiked for a while avoiding the first (purple) coasteering section. Arrive around Yi O and find the entry to the opposite coastline.
The Openstreetmap showed only the initial path, but it was easy to find the way through an old village and a small path with quite some trash around.
In no time on the coastline. This second section is just mainly cute, little more. A couple of good traverses (beware of rock quality in some areas), a couple of shallow caves,
a nice long beach, but for the trash, and arrive
at an Instagram spot on the very North of Tsin Yue Wan. I had seen people hiking on Lantau trail and getting to the beach only to take that pic with the tiny tunnel. No big thing.
Time to swim to Peaked Hill Island! At low tide you can walk. We tried to do so for a while on the tombolo, but soon it was not possible. So swim and fight with the current 😅 I was fine, quite some experience with strong tides + I had my paddles. Denvy and Will swam a bit extra, but eventually, they did it. If you are not a very confident swimmer check the swim route planning post where you can find among others the Tidal currents map. If you plan the outing carefully beforehand you could find a lot easier timing just going a few hours later/ before.
Anyhow, on the island the coasteering improved soon.
And not only that but suddenly
Yup! We decided to take a lunch break there, enjoying the view of a 5-6 dolphins pod, including a baby. My guess is that they were enjoying the strong current, playing and fishing.
After almost half an hour we decided to continue. Nice rocks and traverses.
All part of the Marine Park.
Finish the full round and start the return swim. With significantly milder current this time. Long beach
and back on the rocks for the 4th section. Quite nice too.
Including a really fun spot where to climb high.
Slowly the route becomes easier
until the beach arrival at Fan Lau Sai Wan.
You have the possibility of hiring a boat back to Tai O from here. We saw some taxi boat telephone numbers. Denvy mentioned that at 17:00 a boat also tends to go there to pick up hikers. Research carefully if you want to go with these options. In our case, we returned through the Lantau Trail. Running for me and the two of them hiking.
The first section is not worthwhile doing unless you have plenty of time. On another of my outings I checked it. It is mainly flat. A few pics starting from the South and ending
at Tai O.
One thing to consider. Tai O became a huge “tourist attraction” since Covid started and the queues for buses and taxis in 2022 on good weather weekend afternoons can be crazy (over 2 hours wait once for some friends of us). So try to arrive early. Several hours before sunset ideally.
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