It’s a great time to explore Hong Kong with protests keeping tourists away, so put your hiking shoes on and get up The Peak

With the usual crowds absent, this is the perfect time to explore places such as The Peak and nearby summit High West and enjoy some spectacular views

The trails are peaceful, the birds are singing, and there’s history to soak up too. What’s more, you won’t be fighting for the best seats on the Peak Tram

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A couple take a photo at the summit of High West on Hong Kong Island. With tourist numbers down because of the protests, this is an ideal time to explore some of Hong Kong’s attractions. Photo: Martin Williams

Published: 3:00pm, 21 Jan 2020Updated: 12:32pm, 12 Feb 2020

With so many tourists deterred by news of the protests in Hong Kong, now is a good time to enjoy attractions that are usually thronged with visitors. Take the Peak Tram, for example, which on a recent weekday morning was so quiet there were only six other people on board.

While taking the tram is in itself worthwhile – the journey takes passengers from the jumble of high-rise buildings to the wooded slopes high above them – it is also a handy way of reaching higher parts of Hong Kong Island which offer good opportunities for hiking and strolling.

Easy walks along Harlech Road and Lugard Road offer, respectively, sweeping views over Victoria Harbour and across the high-rises of Pok Fu Lam to Lamma. These roads are little more than broad paved footpaths that mostly hug the contours of The Peak, and meet in the west so you can make a circuit.

A less obvious route for a hike leads up Mount Austin Road. At first, it appears this might only head for clusters of flats, but after about five minutes you can take a detour into Mount Austin Playground, with its gardens, shrubberies and scattered trees. Above here, the road narrows to little more than single lane, then angles left and upwards, through woodland.

A former gate lodge on The Peak, Hong Kong. Photo: Martin Williams

Perhaps 20 minutes’ walk from the tram station, there is a single-storey, white-painted building by the road. This was built at the beginning of last century, as living quarters for the gatekeeper of a mountain lodge built at the same time, which was a summer residence for Hong Kong governors.