Tap Mun Island Walk

It's been a while since we last go for a hiking. Last week, we finally made time to go to Tap Mun Island.

Tap Mun (塔門), or Grass Island is a small island located in the north part of the Sai Kung Penisula. It's really a tiny island, with an area just 1.69 km². Administratively, it is part of Tai Po district.

Tap Mun can be reached by ferry from Wong Shek Pier in Sai Kung or Ma Liu Shui Pier, near to to our place. Since we didn't want to spend too long time in the ferry, we drove to Sai Kung. Too bad private vehicles are not allowed to enter the restricted zone. So, we had to park our car before the line. Then took a bus to get to Wong Shek Pier. This road journey takes about 1 hour, including the waiting time for bus.

By the time we reached Wong Shek Pier, the ferry had just gone 15 minute ago. We have to wait 45 minutes for the next ferry to come. In order to kill time, we wandered around this BBQ site to watch people sailed their boat and surfing. The weather was cloudy and windy that day, pretty cold too, I don't even want to wash my hands. So I really respect those people who is not afraid to get their whole body wet in that kind of weather.

Finally, the ferry came on time. We quickly get on board. Despite of a strong gasoline smell, it's warm sitting in the lower deck. Fare is not expensive, HKD12 for a single journey.

This is the upper deck, it's more open air compared to the lower deck. We would like to sit there if the day was not that windy and cold.



The ferry stopped over this small fishery village. Some people got off there, but we didn't.



We just let the ferry take us to our destination, Tap Mun. It only takes 20 min from Wong Shek Pier to Tap Mun.



My first impressive about this remote island : Wow, how come this place is so underdeveloped? Has the government forgotten about it?


Later on, I find out there are only 100 people living on the island. The original residents seem to abandon this place and migrate elsewhere a long time ago. This place has no bank, no post office, no groceries store, no market...They don't even have the basic here, don't mention about other facilities...I wonder how modern people can live in this kind of environment?

Anyway, the serenity of this island had captured my heart very quickly. Unlike other places out there, this place is all so quiet.



This is the only main street in the island.



Some fishermen of Tap Mun make a living by selling their sun-dried catch. Sun-dried fish and shrimp are popular amongst local tourists.

The lady seller of this stall is very friendly though I show no interest in her products. She didn't mind I take photos of her things, just asked me not to include her in the photos.

She didn't mind the boys played with her handy made wood toys too. She pestered me to buy it for them, said it's only cost HKD30 mah. However, knowing the boys will only play it for 1 day, I better leave this piece of art to the people who really appreciate for its beauty.

This is the only stall selling sea-shell souvenir.

This is the only seafood restaurant. We saw a small tea restaurants nearby too, selling the well known 'ice-less' ice-cold milk tea. Unfortunately, we had taken a heavy breakfast that morning. Otherwise, we would really like to eat something here.

Most of the houses here are old and not well maintained. I simply see no development here, guess it had stopped since 20-30 years ago.

Demolished houses and the debris can be seen everywhere along this main street.

The only well-maintained concrete structure in this island is the Tin Hou Temple. Superstitious or not, this show how Chinese people respect their Gods.

Unlike the street down there, this place is kept pretty clean.

My mother used to teach me when I was young : you must greet the people when you enter someone's house, and you must greet the Gods when you enter the temple, too. I agree, so we entered the temple and greeted the God statues and donated some money too.

I guess that yellow building next to the temple is the village's 'municipal center'.

We walked further away from the pier. Besides that 4 hawkers and a few tourists, we saw no body else. No motel was seen too. So, I suppose no tourist would put a night here. I can imagine this place will look like a ghost town at night time.

Hello, anybody home? Judging from the condition of the house (an air-conditioned was installed), I guess some one is living in this house, but the door wasn't closed properly. The tenant seem to believe no evil people in this world.

This 2 houses are like twins. I think some one must be staying there too, though we saw nobody around.

This is the most beautiful house in the island. I felt so itchy that I wanted to knock on the door and interview its owner lo. I want to know why he / she wants to live in this not-conducive place. Of course I didn't lah.

Against all odds, this place is absolutely serene and beautiful. What a pity the development had been stopped here.

Should it was a sunny day, I believe the blue sky and emerald sea must look astonishing beautiful. In cloudy day, it looks mysterious though.

This place is so beautiful, so I asked KS to take a solo picture for me.

After walking for 30 min, we took a short break here. KS was getting tension again, he got to ensure the boys won't fall into the cold sea.

The water is surprisingly clear. But we saw no fishes around. WTH, even the fishes also migrate to else where?

After resting for a while, we continue walking further away. Actually we didn't know what to expect ahead of us. We just heard people said there are some kind of rock formation somewhere in this island. They said we just got to follow this path.

Along this stretch of road, no more broken houses are seen. Instead, big black hole that is made of intricate exposed-roots can been seen.

We didn't stray a bit, we just walked straight on this nice road.

I'm kind of surprise to see a school here. But I think this school had been shut down already.

Just when we were about to cross a small bridge, we saw this cattle heading to us out of a turn. Automatically, we all move aside to let this beast pass by the bridge first.

Look what the cattle had done !

From here, we started to see piles of faeces scattered everywhere. William was getting particular again. He refused to walk by his own because he didn't want to step on the faeces. Sigh.

Not very long later, we reached the hill top. It's bizarre to see what we saw in front of us. We totally didn't expect such a panoramic views of the surrounding sea. Thought we would only see some strange rocks on the beach? Too bad my camera can't capture the scenery any wider.

The scene at our left hand side.

Tap Mun is renowned for the contrast in temperature and the wind conditions between day and night. Temperature drops and wind soars during the night time but die down when the dawn marks the beginning of a temperature rise.

The very gentle slopes of the hilltops are a favourite campsite amongst campers, although there is the danger of the bordering cliffs. Adventurous campers seem to enjoy precarious hikes along the dirt path that is very close to the cliff edges. , and so provides a brief escape away from the busy city life.

However, hygiene-conscious campers tend to stay away from Tap Mun as the island is home to cattle, resulting in hilltops dotted with many piles of dried faeces. Luckily, it's not smelly at all. Otherwise, it really spoil the good environment here.

After taking a short break at the hill top, we continue our walk some more.

Don't know what this fruit is called? I have never seen it before either.

It's very windy and cold, William bugged us to carry him again. I felt guilty for not bringing thicker clothes for them.

The beautiful scenery along the way is very rewarding. As we go further away, we can see the cape behind in a full picture now.

We reached another hilltop.

Facing the vast ocean, I feel that my mind and my heart was getting vast too.

Just that the wind is really too strong for us to sit there any longer.

So, we continue walking some more...

There are quite some people here, guess this is the famous place to see the strange rocks.

We walked to the edge slowly and look down...

aha...this is called balance rock. Although slanted a bit to the left, the rock on top strike its balance not to fall down. Cool.

Later on, that 4 young men risk their life to go down to the rock to take some pictures at near distance.

For me, I'm only dare to go that near to the edge.

See some rock-climbers over there too.

I can see that this part is not too difficult, good for the beginner to practice the climbing skills.

The beautiful rugged coastal line.

Another short break.

OMG, is this the blueberries that I have been paying HKD480 each month to consume its extracted essence to keep my eyes from aging fast?

Standing at this junction, we have hesitated for a long time. Should we walked further along to the new fisherman's village, or should we head back to Tin Hau Temple? Certainly, we would like to continue the journey to the new fisherman's village. But if we couldn't go back to the pier by that direction, the kids would be too exhausted to walk back by then . We have asked the people around, but nobody could gave us the answer as they are just the visitors, like us.

So, we made a decision to turn back to Tin Hou Temple. When we reached the pier, we catch the ferry just in time. So, we got on board in a hury. Didn't really look around the island for the second time.

We went home by the same route. As expected, the boys fell asleep in the car. We put them in bed when we reached home. Then, we snugged in our warm bed and slept like a dead pig ourself too.