圓墩西坑 Yuen Tun West Creek is a short small one with little flow. Just good to combine with other streams and spotlights in the area.
- Beauty/fun: 4/10 very short, unless you go through the upper jungly iron slime section, low flow, slightly muddy water even downstream, a couple of high waterfalls that look very pretty only after heavy rain.
- Difficulty (check this link if new here, this is not your standard HK hiking web): 4/10 the main difficulty is that rocks are very slippery with a thin slime/lichen layer on them. No shoes, even Five Tens, have a good grip on them. Otherwise, the scrambling is relatively easy, but for two steps, and the navigation easier.
- The map (how to download to your phone offline maps)
See full screen & the Garmin track (going Snake Tongue stream up and this one down) & a second track going this up first and Yuen Tun North creek after.
I have trail run and checked this area several times. There are nice woods around. The map above shows a few options. Purple line how I went down after being in Snake Tongue (dark blue line). Green well-marked paths. In the case of Yuen Tun West, to avoid the upper flattish red iron slimy section. The brown line for doing both West & North creeks in one go, hiking through a cute intermediate path.
On a hot 1st of July, we decided to go for an easy day. We met in Tsuen Wan West MTR and took a taxi to the public toilets before Tai Lam Nature Trail. We walked on the concrete road next to the water catchment. And up we went the small creek, starting from here.
Video of the first creek and the cute connection path within the bamboos, woods and next to tiny creeks.
Scramble next to the initial waterfalls, crossing right to left to right through the easiest way.
Already we were struggling a bit with no grip on the wet rocks. A bit later the highest of the waterfalls (1:15). It is climbable with some effort, as shown by Matías. Otherwise, there is a side path on the left side. Actually in the upper right corner pic below you can see Alexa coming down through there. The last two steps before connecting back with the stream (1:26) are slightly tricky. Just find your way, even if that means sliding on your ass and shoes down.
Just another high waterfall after and later the stream starts to get flatter. So this time we exited through the tiny bridge (1:48) and clear path. Then we continued North direction, heading towards the North creek, through nice bamboo sections (1:59) and others. To be explained in the next post.
The uppermost part is very flat and jungly. Same as in Tai Ho and several other streams, this means iron-oxidizing bacteria tainted red water & reddish-brown gelatinous slime. Not the most fun to go through. Video of it, the first time going downhill, mainly for my reference.
Apart from the aforementioned Yuen Tun North Creek & Snake Tongue stream, you could combine this with the slab under To Hang Tung. It was part of my initial plan with them two, but it was too hot for it.
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