Sai Wan Beach Hike

Last weekend was a three day weekend for us, as July 1st was a holiday. In fact, it's the day Hong Kong was given back to China from Britain back in 1997. Anyways, we decided to celebrate on Sunday by going on a hike in the New Territories. The County Park entrance was about a 45 min drive away. Then you had to take a 10 min taxi ride to the trail head, which was the scariest taxi ride I have ever been on. There was alot of blind corners on a one car road type of situations. We had to backup to let other taxis pass several times. The area itself was called the Sai Kung County Park, and we hiked the Sai Wan trail to Sai Wan Beach #2. The hike was only about an hour long, but we got a late start and ending up hiking during midday. This was bad planning on our part. I don't think I have ever sweated so much in my entire life. It would drip off my nose, I would wipe the responsible river away, but somehow another droplet fell only a few seconds later. We would survive, but we had also decided to bring Trig along on this adventure, and it was him I was worried about. I've never seen him breathing so hard, and his tongue was basically dragging on the ground about 10 min in. We stopped as often as we could, gave him as much water as we had, and we knew he would be able to cool off once we got to the beach. He made it, but that night and the entire next day he was wiped. 

Anyways, we made the hike, which is really more of a paved walk with a few steep parts. But, the surrounding terrain was beautiful. It was lush green shrubbery on medium sized hills, with views of a nearby reservoir, and eventually the ocean. The ocean itself was a gorgeous blue turquoise color, as apparently there is not a popular shipping lane nearby so the water stays cleaner. The water was also unbelievably warm, almost like bath water. You could just jump right in without any hesitation. It also wasn't particularly deep, and the waves weren't big enough to ride. But bobbing about in the shallows was nice and relaxing. 

A view of the reservoir mid-hike. 

Beach #1

There were villages at both Beach #1 and Beach #2. It's so funny; these people run small restaurants that cater to the hungry beach goers. But what do they do otherwise? Where do the kids go to school? How do they bring in all of their supplies? Does someone 4-wheel it in, or do they bring it in by boat?

The restaurant we went to for lunch was actually very delicious and super cheap. A beer was $1.5. The restaurants also rent out umbrellas, which you need on the scorching sand under the blazing sun. Finally, they can organize a boat taxi to take you back to the main small town just outside the county park entrance. By the time we got to the beach, all of the taxi boats were full until like 7:45pm, so we decided just to hike it back out. We didn't leave til 5pm, so it was a much nicer walk in the cooler temps. You could spend a whole day there just relaxing. I definitely plan to go here with my cousins, Ryan and Alecia, when they visit next week, which I am super excited about! It's so great that you can go to such a beautiful place that seems so remote, yet you are only 45 min outside of the city. Beat that New York. 

Beach #2