Small remote island with decent coasteering and a very interesting last remaining villager. Kayaking or boat hiring required to go there.
- Beauty/fun: 5.5 part of the island offers decent coasteering, but there are also bad quality rock areas, the beaches are not specially nice and with quite some trash. Meeting Mr Lam and his passion for this tiny place was great.
- Difficulty (check this link if new here, this is not your standard HK hiking web): 4.5/10 only a couple of high tricky scrambles that can be avoided with short deep wades in higher tide. Relatively protected of swell & wind waves. Kayak required in our mode.
- The map (how to download to your phone offline maps)
See full screen & the Garmin track.
Tyler & Wayne had been coasteering around the island several years ago, while circumnavigating all HK, and said that Sunshine Island was OK. Once I discovered that we could rent kayaks in Peng Chau I decided to check it. Janis, a kayaker herself and zero worried with cold (full year non wetsuit swimmer), was keen to join.
Kayak out of the bay turn South and head straight to the Northern beach in Sunshine.
Leave the kayak behind and start coasteering counterclockwise. This initial part is quite easy to scramble on and with a few sandy sections.
On the biggest beach we saw several ribbons heading into the jungle. So it seems that people kayak here and hike a bit. Explained below.
In our case, we continued coasteering. Improves significantly in this area. Fun scrambling, including a tricky traverse, small tunnels and some ups and downs.
The most notable rock structure just below. From this side initially it looks like a big fin and later once you try to wade around it you get the turtle look from one side and the
Fist(bump) rock, as mentioned in the Rocks post from the opposite.
Later slowly the rock quality deteriorates and on the North East corner is really easily breakable sandstone.
Janis was asking what those kind of black balls were. We were seen a lot of them. Goat poo! 😆 There is at least one residing in the island. Zoom the pic above. Pretty good “coasteering”.
Once we ended up the full loop and back on the starting beach, we went up the path to pay Mr. Lam a visit and we helped him move some wood up to his house.
Please, if you go to the island and he is not around be considered. He is trying his best to keep the remainders of the old village. The aforementioned ribbons pass through/next to it. Do not touch anything, just take pics and leave everything as it is. If any of you that I know personally wants it, I can provide you his phone number. To let him know beforehand that you will be around and you do not scare him.
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