Hiking Hong Kong’s Lantau Island: an adventure to Sunset Peak for stunning views from city’s third highest mountain
- The road to Sunset Peak is a relatively tough outing and could take up to six hours with stops for rests, photos and a picnic lunch
- The expansive landscape makes it feel like a real escape from the city
The Sunset Peak massif dominates the interior of eastern Lantau Island and its high grassy slopes make for some of the finest upland hiking in Hong Kong. There’s an expansiveness to the landscape, which seems splendidly remote from the city – making it feel like a real escape.
But first, you have to get there. The most popular route follows a section of the Lantau Trail, which you might start from the western end, at Pak Kung Au, 333m (1093ft) above sea level; or at Nam Shan to the east.
Nam Shan is half an hour’s walk from the ferry pier at Mui Wo, though you could save time and effort by taking a bus or taxi. It is around 100m above sea level and is in a dip between hillsides, with a pavilion in a grassy area.
A signpost indicates the way to Pak Kung Au, suggesting the hike there will take 2 hours and 45 minutes. Take this with a pinch of salt, though, for while some people might stride jauntily up and over the mountain in this time, and others even seem to run the trail with blissful ease, this is a relatively tough outing, and could take six hours with stops for rests, photos and a picnic lunch.
“The mountains have usually a dreary and barren aspect … trees are seldom met with,” wrote the Reverend R. Krone in 1858, as referenced in Hong Kong Country Parks by Stella Thrower. But as in much of Hong Kong, there was extensive reforestation of lower and mid-elevation slopes last century, particularly to help moderate and maintain water flows to Shek Pik Reservoir, which was built in southwest Lantau from 1957 to 1963. Now, the plantations are luxuriant, and the trail from Nam Shan leads up through the densely arrayed trees.
