Climb The Peak: walking to Hong Kong’s top
The heart of Hong Kong is a dense built up area projecting toward the sky, which thins out from the dense front of the port to the hill named The Peak. It’s base is dotted with some modern skyscrapers and the hillside is populated by colonial houses hiding behind the jungle dressing up the slope.
An imposing funicular wedged in the mountain towers over Victoria Peak, the highest point above Hong Kong. Tourists go up and down, stopping at the Observation Deck, which offers a glimpse of Hong Kong behind a large window. But there's a more authentic way to get to the city's highest observation point.
A walk through the alleys that climb the slopes of the Peak, among the locals who are busy setting up the morning markets, and the escalators that facilitate the ascent to the ladies weighed down by the heavy shopping bags, leads to the access to the park lying on the hill.
This is the door to the Lung Fu Shan Morning Trail, a paved path that climbs through the woods, frequented by runners who train, bare-breasted elders keeping fit with a slow walk in the morning mist, some martial arts practitioners stopping for their Thai Chi exercises in the refreshment stands.
Following the path that crosses the namesake Country Park, one reaches the Victoria Peak with a walk of about 50 minutes. A left fork leads to the panoramic Lugard Road, up to the Lugard Road Lookout, an observation point from which the view competes with what you could see from the funicular.
The trail has a difference in height of about 350 m (about 500 m if you start the hike from the Waterfront as I did in about 1h and 15’) but is worth every minute spent if you are lucky enough to climb the Peak on a sunny day.
Someone might not be very attracted by a couple of hours of hiking in the mountains under an incessant drizzle and wrapped in a thick and warm early-June fog, but to me this option seemed more picturesque than taking a Metro, getting on a funicular, buying a ticket to observe Hong Kong behind a window instead of outdoors and getting off again with the cable car.
A rainy, sun-kissed day would be more advisable for this excursion, considering that the Victoria Peak was surrounded by such a thick fog to hide completely the Panorama. Cold comfort, the fog has not spared even the funicular, wrapped in a thick and white blanket as the rest of the hill on the north side.
The panorama that at times the fog left uncovered was however incredible; the wild park wrapped in the mist and in the shimmering humidity, that enveloped any object (myself included) in the muffled silence of the morning, was really suggestive. Moreover, the south-west side of the hill was completely clear, offering a fabulous view of the islands around Lantau.
To come back to the Central district, a cheap and pleasant solution is to take one of the buses from the station located next to the funicular, take a ride on the opposite side of the peak, and descends to the financial center of the city, through the forest, the area of colonial residences, and the most peripheral residential areas of the central district, offering beautiful views from the top of the eastern side of the city.
