In 1958 and 1987 there was a lay-by at the junction of the camp road and the Cape Collinson Roads. Now it's a well tended place where people can sit, relax, talk and enjoy the view.
On the top left there is a small white patch of buildings, and further right (closer to the sea) some brown ones under construction. That place is Heng Fa Cheun, built on top of a reclaimed bay. Like some other MTR developed housing estates, the lowest levels house a train depot as well as the station platforms. Curiously on this end of the Island Line that started operating from 1985, the terminus is Chai Wan Station, but the depot is actually in Heng Fa Cheun.
On my visits I usually went to the Chai Wan War cemetery and usually got to it from the Shek O road. On one occasion, I caught the MTR to Chai Wan and then got thoroughly lost between the station and the Cape Collinson road. I ended up taking a taxi that took me all the way round by the Tai Tam road. I must have been only a few hundred yards from the cemetery when I hailed it!
In 1981 or '87, I was aware of a huge multi-storey bus depot just to the south of the Chai Wan harbour on the Chai Wan road. Google Earth Street view shows it as being in a very delapidated state and I wonder whether it has now been demolished and replaced with apartments.
Some of my friends who were billeted at the Lyemun camp in the very early 1950s before Little Sai Wan was built remember great swimming in that bay just below their barrack block which has been replaced with the HK Jockey club building. On our nostagic trip back in 2007 they couldn't believe it was the same place!
Well if the taxi driver took you over to Tai Tam Road then he literally 'took you for a ride', because if you start from the Chai Wan MTR station and walk up Lin Shing Road, it will take you perhaps 25 minutes to walk uphill. You can see from the cropped Google map to check the distances involved.
The dilapidated bus depot is on the centre right on the image. It is still dilapidated, but still full of buses last time I walked past a couple of months back.
As for your regular walk across Dragon's Back to Big Wave Bay, that walk (or a close relative of it) was selected as one of the 'Top 10 best urban hikes in Asia' by Time Magazine in 2004.
Agreed - on that very rare occasion when I resorted to taking a taxi I was taken for a ride, but I'd spent so long wandering around the streets of Cha Wan in the heat I was fed up. What I'd forgotten was that the road connecting Chai Wan with the Cape Collinson road did so at a low level and I'd kept trying to gain height, ending up somewhere on a road just below the Tai Tam road. During my trips to HK in the early 2000s I walked for MILES not just on the hill paths but also along the roads, not wanting to spend extravagantly on taxi fares. Only on my penultimate visit in 2006 did I realise how cheap HK taxi fares are compared with those in the UK - and then I became a bit more self-indulgent! Maybe I was just beginning to feel my age!
Yes, those walks in the Pottinger Peak area are excellent, as are the ones such as that from Quarry Bay up to Sanitarium Gap and round by Mt Butler and Jardines Lookout and down to Wong Nai Chung Gap. In that broad area, I've also enjoyed the walk from Sanatorium Gap down past the two TainTam reservoirs to the dam on Tai Tam Road. It has never failed to amaze me how in a matter of just a few hundred yards one can be away from the noise and bustle of busy Hong Kong and in such beautiful and peaceful surroundings.
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On the top left there is a
On the top left there is a small white patch of buildings, and further right (closer to the sea) some brown ones under construction. That place is Heng Fa Cheun, built on top of a reclaimed bay. Like some other MTR developed housing estates, the lowest levels house a train depot as well as the station platforms. Curiously on this end of the Island Line that started operating from 1985, the terminus is Chai Wan Station, but the depot is actually in Heng Fa Cheun.
Hi Breskvar
Hi Breskvar
On my visits I usually went to the Chai Wan War cemetery and usually got to it from the Shek O road. On one occasion, I caught the MTR to Chai Wan and then got thoroughly lost between the station and the Cape Collinson road. I ended up taking a taxi that took me all the way round by the Tai Tam road. I must have been only a few hundred yards from the cemetery when I hailed it!
In 1981 or '87, I was aware of a huge multi-storey bus depot just to the south of the Chai Wan harbour on the Chai Wan road. Google Earth Street view shows it as being in a very delapidated state and I wonder whether it has now been demolished and replaced with apartments.
Some of my friends who were billeted at the Lyemun camp in the very early 1950s before Little Sai Wan was built remember great swimming in that bay just below their barrack block which has been replaced with the HK Jockey club building. On our nostagic trip back in 2007 they couldn't believe it was the same place!
Best wishes Andrew
Well if the taxi driver took
Well if the taxi driver took you over to Tai Tam Road then he literally 'took you for a ride', because if you start from the Chai Wan MTR station and walk up Lin Shing Road, it will take you perhaps 25 minutes to walk uphill. You can see from the cropped Google map to check the distances involved.
The dilapidated bus depot is on the centre right on the image. It is still dilapidated, but still full of buses last time I walked past a couple of months back.
As for your regular walk across Dragon's Back to Big Wave Bay, that walk (or a close relative of it) was selected as one of the 'Top 10 best urban hikes in Asia' by Time Magazine in 2004.
breskvar
Agreed - on that very rare
Agreed - on that very rare occasion when I resorted to taking a taxi I was taken for a ride, but I'd spent so long wandering around the streets of Cha Wan in the heat I was fed up. What I'd forgotten was that the road connecting Chai Wan with the Cape Collinson road did so at a low level and I'd kept trying to gain height, ending up somewhere on a road just below the Tai Tam road. During my trips to HK in the early 2000s I walked for MILES not just on the hill paths but also along the roads, not wanting to spend extravagantly on taxi fares. Only on my penultimate visit in 2006 did I realise how cheap HK taxi fares are compared with those in the UK - and then I became a bit more self-indulgent! Maybe I was just beginning to feel my age!
Yes, those walks in the Pottinger Peak area are excellent, as are the ones such as that from Quarry Bay up to Sanitarium Gap and round by Mt Butler and Jardines Lookout and down to Wong Nai Chung Gap. In that broad area, I've also enjoyed the walk from Sanatorium Gap down past the two TainTam reservoirs to the dam on Tai Tam Road. It has never failed to amaze me how in a matter of just a few hundred yards one can be away from the noise and bustle of busy Hong Kong and in such beautiful and peaceful surroundings.
Best wishes Andrew