Take an easy hike around Sha Lo Tung, rural Hong Kong gem that was saved from developers
- Sha Lo Tung is a delightful area of streams fringed by woodland, a reservoir, abandoned villages and old paddies
- A 40-year battle between developers and conservationists has recently finished and the site’s future seems assured
Head into the hills near Tai Po Market, taking a narrow road from the fringe of the industrial estate, and it is almost as if you are leaving 21st century Hong Kong behind. The road climbs through woodland, curls to the right to cross the crest of a ridge, then dips into a basin ringed by hills.
This is Sha Lo Tung: a tranquil place, with old village houses – many of them crumbling to ruins; plus streams fringed by woodland, and marshy patches that were once paddies.
Sha Lo Tung is among the gems of the Hong Kong countryside, and makes for a wonderful easy outing, with opportunities for longer hikes if you wish. Yet it could have looked very different, had the plans of a would-be developer been realised.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Sha Lo Tung Development Company buying up villagers’ rights to land here – which led to decades of wrangling over a variety of plans for profiteering from golf courses, luxury housing and even a columbarium, while conservationists strove to safeguard Sha Lo Tung and its rich wildlife. Now, with the developer set to surrender the land in return for other land to develop, its future as a natural haven at last seems assured.
The road ends beside a stream, and from here you can explore by following a dirt track. Just across a bridge over the stream, there is a junction with an old footpath on the right. This must have been well used when Sha Lo Tung was thriving, but has become overgrown in the years since. But it had been partly cleared of grass and shrubs by December, affording a chance to follow the stream to an abandoned hamlet, Lei Uk.