Tour de Tolo On your bikes! It is NOT the Tour de France and there will be some walking involved as well, but you are invited to join our Tour de Tolo – a 30km trip along the shores of the Tolo Harbour, 25 of which will be covered on bicycle (primarily along dedicated bicycle paths).
Before we pick up our bicycles, though, we will take a little stroll around the old part of Tai Wai, one of Hong Kong's oldest villages. Once we do get into the saddle, we will also be making brief stops at the area's two other major attractions; the Che Kung Temple and the Tsang Tai Uk compound.
The Che Kung Festival, held on the third day of the Chinese New Year, sees thousands of worshippers gathering at the temple to pray for good fortune. People will line up to light their ceremonial tributes and turn a bronze prayer-wheel in a clockwise direction to avert bad luck and hope for a "good-turn" of fortune in the coming year. On normal week days, however, crowds should be minimal, so we can enjoy our visit.
From the temple, it is a short ride to the huge Tsang Tai Uk compound, built by a local businessman to accommodate his descendants. From here we follow the bicycle paths past the Heritage Museum and the Racecourse before reaching Tolo Harbour at the Ma Liu Shui ferry pier. We will then follow the water’s edge to and through the Tai Po Waterfront Park, before enduring a brief boring passage through the Tai Po Industrial Estate to rejoin the bicycle path along Ting Kok Road.
We turn off for Sam Mun Tsai village, where we leave the bikes at one of the stores to visit - on foot - Yim Tin Tsai. From the top of the small hill on this “cemetery” island in the middle of Tolo Harbour, we have magnificent views over Ma On Shan, Tai Mo Shan, Plover Cove and the Pat Sin Leng range.
Having stretched our legs after the "unaccustomed" pedaling, we pause for refreshments back at the harbour front in Sam Mun Tsai before continuing towards Tai Mei Tuk. Here we ride all along the Plover Cove Reservoir Dam and back again, before consuming a well-deserved lunch at one of the Thai restaurants here.
Leaving the bikes in Tai Mei Tuk, our return to the big city will be undertaken in the air-conditioned comfort of double-decker busses, which will allow us to experience our bike route from a different angle...