Long coasteering far away in Saikung. For those looking for the most remote adventures. Long outing on your own. Much more doable with a boat.

  • Beauty/fun: 8/10 nice rock formations, quite some caves, start and finish on pretty beaches.
  • Difficulty (check this link if new here, this is not your standard HK hiking web): 8/10 long outing with boat time limitations (ferry initially, you can catch speed boats in Ham Tin for the return) or even longer outing without (hiking back to Wong Shek pier). Complicated navigation due among others to varying quality rock. Several times we scrambled up the cliff, continued on top for a while to find out that there was no safe way down (high with potential “detachable handholds”) and we needed to go back the same way we came and jump into the water. Possible early exits, but complex and long. You are in one of the most remote places in the Hong Kong peninsula.
  • The map (how to download to your phone offline maps)

See full screen & the Garmin track.

Denvy & I had been talking about this outing for a while. We were tempted to go even longer, coasteering directly from Ko Lau Wan. That would not have been a good idea unless we planned as an outing possibly even longer than the Devil’s Fist. Even in fast mode (trail running part of the start and the end) we did this in 7h36min + 30min of breaks. We would need at least 90 minutes more coasteering from Ko Lau Wan + 1 or 2 hours more (either trail running or hiking) if there were no boats available once in Ham Tin.

So early wake up and take the ferry at Wong Shek Pier at 8:30. At 8:50 start at Ko Lau Wan fast hiking and jogging. Relatively open bush,

with long concrete sections.

Video with the full outing.

Go down to Nam She Wan (蚺蛇灣) and the first coasteering section (which can be done fully dry by taking a few side paths) to Mai Fan Tsui (米粉咀) is quite easy.

Starting from the beach.

Mainly flattish

with a few easy scrambling spots

In less than an hour we arrived at Mai Fan Tsui. Looking towards Wong Mau Chau. A cute (but too instagramy in recent years) island.

Getting there requires an approx 800m swim x2. Therefore we did not attempt it. Instead we continued on the peninsula. Moving forward the route becomes more complex. With real scrambling and several caves and cute corridors to go through.

Tuen Tsui has a very picturesque rock formation.

And just in front the little islet called Wo Sheung Chau. We swam to it and climb to the top. Really nice views, seeing all the coastline that we had yet to coasteer on.

This second half has varied rock sections. Very interesting to see (colors, peculiar sedimentary structures) but tricky to scramble on. Big sections of brittle rocks. Denvy on the upper right pic looking down the cliff “no way to climb down this one safely, we need to go back the way we came” 😅 As mentioned, it happened a few times.

There were also fun walls to enjoy climbing up and down. Eventually we arrived at the Easternmost point. Just because I wanted to see the very last bit connecting with the route done with Tyler from Tai Long Wan. It does not deserve the effort unless you are also a want-to-see-it-all. The best exit would be here otherwise.

Marked on the map with the green line. Hikers (and campers) frequently go there and therefore the paths around are clear.

As mentioned, in our case, we continued till here.

And jog back to Ham Tin for lunch and return boat.

By the way, if you have watched the video above you might have wondered what those camping tents and tenders were. Our guess: illegal immigrants camp or smugglers. You might want to spend as little time around those as possible. Just in case.

If you rent a boat and coasteer just a small part of it you can spend a lot of time exploring all the caves there. Tons as per this video

I have marked on the map (purple waypoint) one of the few that they visited. As you can watch, to enjoy some you will need to dive into them. That’s the reason for name of the “dive hole” = cave.

Everything you should know before coasteering.