Useful Facts
- Distance: 36km
- Elevation: 1.8km with many sets of stairs and steep hills
- Time taken: 8 hours
- Terrain: concrete path from Tai Wai to Tai Po Market, then natural hiking trail for the rest of the trail
- Once you start the climb to Cloudy hill near the end of Wilson Stage 8 there are no more toilets
Sometimes when running along a new trail, I arrive at the top of a hill and think ‘wow – this has to be the most beautiful view in Hong Kong’. I thought this many times during this outing, and the Wilson Trail Stage 9 has to be one of my all time favourites. This route is a tale of two very different routes, like chalk and cheese, not really belonging together but forced together in a most unwilling fashion. Tai Wai to Tai Po Market is completely flat, following the cycle path most of the way towards Tai Po before veering off to arrive at Tai Po Market MTR station. I ran this piece to get some distance into my legs before tackling the Wilson stages 8 & 9, and I also met my wife at Tai Po Market MTR and we completed the rest of the run together.
Getting there
You actually have three choices, depending on whether you wish to start at Tai Wai and do the full 36km, start at Tai Po Market and do all of section 8 & 9, or start half-way through section 8 and do the most interesting section of the trail:
- Start running as you exit Tai Wai MTR at the cycle path. Follow the signs to Tai Po, and as you get closer you’ll see a sign towards Tai Po Market.
- Take the MTR to Tai Po Market MTR station. The Wilson Trail stage 8 starts near the Fan Sin Temple, just on the other side of the Tolo Highway.
- Take the MTR to Tai Wo MTR station. Exit the station and head in a westerly direction following Po Nga Road (becomes Tai Po Road. The Wilson Trail stage 8 crosses Po Nga Road at Tai Po Tau Shui Wai Road – take the overpass over the main road. Google maps would be useful since many of the streets around Tai Wo station have similar names.
The Trail
The route to Tai Wai is completely flat and about 14km in length, and it follows the popular cycle path all the way to Tai Po. I exited the trail just before arriving in Tai Po and followed the signs towards Tai Po Market MTR where I met my wife before starting the Wilson stage 8.
The initial direction taken by stage 8 is a little confusing. In the picture above you can see me pointing to the top of Cloudy Hill, which is where stage 8 ends, but at this point we are walking uphill – away from Cloudy Hill – not towards it. The first part of Stage 8 is actually semi-circular, and after a few kilometers we ended up back in Tai Po not too far from the Tai Wo MTR station, where we were directed by the helpful Wilson Trail signs through a residential area and finally back onto the trail. You could easily skip this section if you don’t fancy climbing up stairs only to go back down more stairs and end up near where you started. The climb up to Cloudy Hill is where this trail really starts to become fun anyway.
I did have to check Google Maps a few times, especially at intersections where I was unsure which direction to travel in. I do find the trails in HK well marked in general, though I’ve come across some intersections on certain trails that are unmarked. Usually the phone coverage is excellent though and Google is able to come to the rescue.
The Sights
After climbing up to Cloudy Hill and finishing stage 8, this trail climbs up and down the 8 Ephemerals; at least, that’s what they are called on the information boards along the route (or was it the 8 Eternals – I can’t recall). In Cantonese I think they are called the 8 Brothers, but the point is that they are 8 peaks that run west-to-east just north of Tai Po and the Wilson trail ascends and descends each of them in turn. If you like seeing wave after wave of hills stretching out before you, and you don’t mind knowing that you have to climb up and down most of them, then you’ll like the scenery this trail offers. We were (sort of) lucky as the day we did this trail was misty and cool and that added to the mystery of the surroundings; we felt completely alone out on the trail and could see misty peaks peeking out from the clouds in all directions.
You can see on the map below that we missed the end of stage 9 and the exit down to Brides Pool Road. Since we were checking Google Maps regularly we knew it was there but still missed it. Instead we did a smalll part of stage 10 and found the Pat Sin Leng Nature Trail, arriving at Brides Pool Road that way. A small detour, but it did mean arriving at the Tai Mei Tuk bus terminal after dark. We were exhausted, wet (it had been raining for hours) and starving; fortunately one of the local restaurants just over the road from the bus terminal fed and watered us for a small fee.
Getting out
The route shown on my map below ends at the Tai Mei Tuk bus terminal where you can find buses and mini-buses back to Tai Po town centre.
OK – I’m about to complain. My wife and I did this hike again the past weekend (end of Aug, 2015), and included stage 10 also. Some interfering do-gooders have spoiled stage 10 by paving almost the entire stage with uneven, rocky paving. It was raining during our hike and my wife slipped on those very slippery ‘paving’ stones. In some places there was natural path next to the paving and the path was great, but the ‘paving’ stones are horrible to walk on, impossible to run on and a huge waste of time and money. I suspect the person whose idea it was to ‘pave’ this section has never hiked it.
michael's hong kong 