We are in the final stages of organising our Hong Kong itinerary and I want to do a couple of walks. I want to do Cicerone's suggestion from Central to Stanley. How long approximately does this take after the bus?
Also I want to do the Severn Road one. We have done the Lugard Road one several times and I was planning on doing it again. But are the views from both virtually the same? ( in which case we won't do the Lugard Road one again ).I am happy however to do both if they differ.
My other question is regarding " mid levels". What exactly does this refer to? I imagine it is the various stops on the way up the Peak tram route but am not sure.I don't recall that area having escalators? Very confused.
Also is it worthwhile walking down beside the tram tracks to the bottom? I have gone down before via the tram and bus. Many thanks for any help.

I have read you various messages. Below are some comments.

Yes, the Johnston Road area markets are open every day (other than Chinese New Year). They start around 7 am and go until around 7 pm. The are really busy on Saturdays and Sundays, but pretty good-people watching all day. Lunch hour during a weekday is another good time to come, as is the early evening between 5 � 7 pm.

Mid-levels is a postal district of Hong Kong which is �mid-way� up the hill between the waterfront and the Peak. It is primarily residential. The �escalator� is an outdoor, covered, free pedestrian escalator which runs from Central to the eastern part of Mid-levels. The area roughly starts around Caine Road/Bowen Road and goes up to Robinson Road and May Road, and from west to east from above the Hollywood Road area to the area above Pacific Place. When looking across the harbour from Kowloon, the huge concentration of apartments you see climbing the hill up behind the Bank of China building and the huge IFC skyscraper in Central are pretty much all Mid-levels. The Bishop Lei hotel is in Mid-levels.

Sorry, I don�t understand your question about the walk to Stanley and the #6 bus, can you clarify? If you mean you want to walk to Stanely rather than take the bus, it would depend somewhat on where you start. If you start at Wong Nai Chung Gap Road (where my directions start the walk), the entire walk will take just over 2 hours. The walk from where the <i>bus drops you off at Wong Nai Chung Gap Road to the start of the trail</i> at Wong Nai Chung Gap Reservoir is about 5-10 minutes; and this IMO is the hardest part of the walk as it is a somewhat steeply inclined road (If you can do this, the rest of the walk is a picnic, almost all flat or downhill.) If you start the walk from the Peak (which is possible) the walk will take about 3 hours plus a bit. (If you want to do this, let me know, I will give you directions.)

The problem I have had with the Lugard/Harlech Road walk in the last few years is that the trees are so overgrown now that views are obscured in some places, which is not the case up on Severn. Also on Severen (actually mostly on the Barker Road portion of the walk) you will get some very, very good city/harbour views which are as good as, if not superior to, Lugard. You will also get some excellent sweeping Southside views which are better than what you can see from Lugard. I would do Severen instead of Lugard no question. If you are going to the Peak anway, and have an hour, then IMO the Severen walk offers much better views overall than Lugard/Harlech. But if you were thinking of skipping other places in favour of the Severen walk, then that would be a hard choice, as you seem to have done the Lugard walk several times and know that area. For example, the Dragon�s Back would be a nice change from Peak walks, and I just love the water and mountain views from Ling Kok Shan on Lamma (even the Family Walk on Lamma offers some decent views and certainly differerent from the Peak). There is a great walk on Hong Kong Island to and along Jardine�s Lookout that will give you very different city views and Southside views, on a clear day IMO there is no better city view on the Island; this has some hardish climbing parts, but if you are interested, I would happily post directions. Would take about 2.5-3 hours, and you can end up either in Causeway Bay or Tai Tam on the Southside. Let me know. You can also walk from the Peak or Mid-levels to Pokfulam via several trails, my favourite is via the High West barbque area, I believe I have posted on that before, that is a very nice walk with good water and western views.



For walks down from the Peak, IMO the Old Peak Road walk, while very pleasant (although steep!), offers almost no views at all. It is in quite deep tree cover virtually all of the way. You will not cross paths with the Peak Tram at all. Chatham Path offers some good views in portions (esp around Mid-levels) but also does not have what I would call great views. You will intersect with all the tram stations, but would not follow the tracks for any appreciable length of time. However, of the two it does offer better views, a nice little make-shift temple in the trees, and #1 Chatham Path which is my favourite colonial-era house in Hong Kong. If you are interested, let me know and I will post some more precise directions for the Chatham Path walk, as I think you would not be able to find it using the directions posted on the other message. I have some notes at home and will put them together into a post. I also have notes on a walk to High West also on the Peak which is great particularly for sunset (but does involve a lot of stairs).

Thank you Cicerone for that . I am much clearer now. I will definitely check out the markets in Wanchai and have made notes for lunch stops too. As for the flat ( vitually ) walk to Stanley you have answered my query. We would get the bus to where you have described the start of the walk and I now see the walk itself will probably take 2 hours or so which is fine. Will definitely do the Severn walk too . It will be something new for me and sounds good. As far as anything else I know your info will be helpful to others but I probably won't get to see it as we leave Australia on Wednesday morning and will not arrive in Hong Kong until October. Thank you for all your help now and in the past which has been invaluable in planning my trip.

Sounds like a great trip!

A quick comment would be that October 1 is National Day and there will be fireworks in the harbour, would be good if you were here for that. Several options for viewing, but if your hotel has a harbour view, that is probably the best.

October 7 is Cheung Yeung, one of the two festivals relating to grave sweeping. Schools and offices will be closed, so things like dim sum restauratns and the Peak Tram will be more crowded. It is also considered a very lucky day to go to high elevations (like the Peak), so you may want to avoid the Peak on that day as it can be very crowded (like for sure avoid High West on that day).

Thanks. We don't get there till Nov3 but will ceratinly be there for 7th so will make the Peak another day. We have a harbour view room at Metropark Causeway Bay but will miss the fireworks.

Cicerone
Not only do visitors find your post helpful, new residents to HK like myself swear by it. I have enjoyed the Jason Wordie walks from his books per your recco. Recently, I went walking on Bowen Road from Stubbs Road towards Central. Around Hopewell Center I caught glimpses, to the right, an older style house with middle east style domed roofs hidden behind thick trees. Then later on closer to Central, to my left high above the hills, I caught glimpses of some red brick houses with arches. These older buildings are exciting finds in modern day Hong Kong. Do you know what these buildings are? Any other walks where I can find old colonial houses? I would love directions on your Chatham Path walks. Many thanks!

OK, well walking from Stubbs Road along Bowen, to your left up the hill is a quite famous (or infamous) Chinese-style house known as King Yin Li mansion. The house itself fronts Stubbs Road, just about across from the two high-rise �chopsticks� towers. It is a very large house with a garden. It was sold and scheduled to be torn down about a year ago, but was saved at the last minute by being listed as historic, but just before the listing took place, the new owner sent in some henchmen to try to literally take it down brick by brick with hammers, doing some pretty substantial damage to the place (see back issues of the <i>South China Morning Post</i> to read the full story). Parts are still covered with tarps, but you can see a good portion of the house from Stubbs Road. I believe they are going to restore it and make it part of a larger re-development for housing.

But if you were closer to Central and the <i>end</i> of Bowen Road when you saw this, I am not sure quite what you were looking at. There are lots of trees and the view is not so open looking uphill at that point, so I am guessing you could only have seen something up on Magazine Gap, and there is nothing that old there. It may have been modern made to look older, but hard to tell without knowing where you were on Bowen at that point. (Also on Bowen, coming in from Stubbs Road just before Bowen intersects with Bowen Drive on the right where the little park is on the left, there is an older house on the right, down the hill a bit, almost hidden in the trees, with its own pool, that is quite nice, there is a flight of stairs down to it. Also further down Bowen from this towards Central on the right is more modern house spilling down the side of the hill. You can see the driveway and the front door from the street, the rest of the house is built into the side of the hill.)

Now the middle-eastern style roofs to your right have me intrigued as well. I think you were looking at the Sikh temple at the corner of Stubbs Road and Queens� Road East. I am not aware of any mosque in the area, so the Sikh temple is the only thing which springs to mind. This would be right in front of the Happy Valley Cemetery. The only thing I find strange is that this would not be near Hopewell Center, it would be further east. There is the Pak Tai Temple near Hopewell, but those roofs are red and are really in traditional Chinese style, and you probably would not mistake those. I used to walk Bowen a lot myself when I lived in Mid-levels, but don�t recall Middle Eastern roofs. But now I�ll have to nose around Wan Chai some more!

For colonial houses, yes hard to find. As the colonial period ended in 1997 the range can be broad (and includes the Bank of China building theoretically), but things built before 1950 are really hard to find and things built in the 19th century are even rarer. Chatham Path #1 is really lovely, hard to see all of it from the path itself, get yourself a copy of a book called <i>�Private Hong Kong: Where East Meets West�</i> (you have to back order from Dymocks most likely) and you can see the interiors as well. (This book is very helpful on other remaining colonial architecture in Hong Kong, I think I have another book on colonial architecture as well, I will look for that and post that name.) I can post directions for the walk down from the Peak, but to just see the house easily, go to May Road and the intersection of Chatham Path (just at the stop for the Peak Tram at May Road) and walk up Chatham Path (pedestrian-only concrete path going uphill, look for it leading off from May Road) about 100 yards, the house is on the right. There is a long low white garage building right here also along May Road just before the tram stop which has an apartment on top which is of about that era as well (this is often for rent, I actually viewed it once for that purpose, but it has more charm/history than actual living space, see http://www.habitat-property.com which often has colonial-era buildings for rent). A walk down Middle Gap Road to #15 will show you a really large lovely yellow house, not sure of its actual year, but built in the colonial style. There are some other houses of similar age and style on this road. The Manks Swedish antique store at 2 Kennedy Terrace (Midlevels, just below the Coda Plaza building on MacDonnell Road) is in a really lovely old colonial bungalow (I think about the 1920s), worth looking in and at, and just behind it is an older colonial apartment building (also in the Private Views book as I recall) but now seems to be abandoned. Along Barker Road is an older yellow house at about #28, and also the former Victoria Hospital for women at about #12 (on the right if walking down from the Peak Tram area), that is perhaps the most �colonial� era, having been built in like 1880 or so. If you have not been to the Tea Ware Museum in Hong Kong Park (Pacific Place) that is a lovely colonial era building (again mid 19th century) and an interesting museum. The Murray Barracks building out in Stanley is an old building of the same era that used to also be located in Pacific Place and was moved and rebuilt in Stanley. There is a series of apartment buildings along Upper Albert Road right near the Governor�s House built in the 1930�s and the residence of the Archbishop of Hong Kong built at about the same time is in this area too, right near the Fringe Club. The former Police Barracks on Hollywood Road (now a museum space) is a good example of Edwardian style, in fact wandering this area of Hollywood Road you will find several Edwardian and art deco buildings. The Severen Road Walk will show you several colonial-era or pre-WW II houses as well, and those may be some of the red-brick houses you were referring to (although I think those are modern houses; however there is something like a Scottish castle on the upper part of Severn (I think it is called Cloudlands), which has to be seen to be believed This is not in the part of the Severn Road walk which I have posted, you have to walk all of Severen which is quite long and twisty and mostly has no views, but you have the time to do that.)

On the Kowloon side, they are re-developing the area of the old Marine Police Headquarters on Salisbury Road just next to the YMCA and have saved several buildings from the 1880s and this should be finished in the next few years.

OK well you sparked a conversation at dinner on Friday and I have some more colonial buildings to suggest:

The clock tower in Kowloon at the Star Ferry (can�t believe I missed that one!) This is the last remaining bit of the rail road station that used to be here. There have been a number of clock towers, this one was built in 1915. you can apparently climb to the top, I have never done this, if you do, report back!

The Court of Final Appeals on Battery Path in Central. This is the very pretty brick building you can see behind the Cheung Kung Tower on Queens Road East. This was built in 1915 and was the governors residence for some years, then a French Catholic mission. It is now the court of final appeal for Hong Kong.

St John�s Cathedral, Garden Road. (Can also reach this via Battery Path if doing a walk to see the Court of Final Appeal building.) This was built in about 1850. Very simple in style. This church also has the distinction of being on the only piece of freehold land in Hong Kong, all other land is long-term leasehold (originally from the Crown, now from the Hong Kong government). FYI, they put on concerts and evensong and have a nice little shop with cards and fair trade items, see http://www.stjohnscathedral.org.hk/home.html
for information.

Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Caine Road. You really cannot see this church until you are in front of it, as it is hidden up behind Caine Road, but is quite a large and impressive building. It was built in 1888.

Basically all the dams, bridges, viaducts, holding gates, etc of the three Tai Tam reservoirs are from the late 19th century. (Including the bridge over Tai Tam Reservoir Road.) The bridges are beautifully arched grey stone and you can get a good look at them on a walk down from Park View and then into the park around Tai Tam Reservoir.

Cicerone,
Thank you so much. Thanks for thinking of me at your dinner party
I am aware of the infamous Chinese style house on Stubbs road - unfortunately I only got to &quot;see&quot; it from the road after the press coverage which means it is half torn. I have been to the Catholic Cathedral and have visited the dams at the Tai Tam Reservoir. It is pretty impressive that the reservoir and dams are stil being used today, some 120 years later. All these came about from my search for &quot;black and white&quot; bungalows as the ones in Singapore.. Inspired also by Martin Booth's book &quot;The Golden Boy&quot;, I tried to retrace his footsteps to very little avail. The Mount Austin Mansion seems to be long gone.. and it seems that the hotel where he stayed in the 50s was the hotel where the SARS outbreak started in 2004? ... My phone camera managed to capture mediocre images of the buildings I had in question earlier - I managed to post them just now, may be it will give you more clues. Many thanks! http://picasaweb.google.com/sophiamaple/HKPics

Obviously as you look at the pics, i was way off with my &quot;middle east&quot; style roof description in my original post - the camera is far more accurate than my naked eye ..

No idea about the 2nd and 3rd photos, and those don't seem that significant. But the 1st one is 64 Kennedy Road. Not sure about its history, but it's on the list of Grade III Historical Buildings on the Government's list.

Oh, actually, I think the 2nd photo is 楠樺居 on Bowen Road. It is the resident of 陳振聰 (Chan something), the Fung Shui guy who says the late billionaire Nina Wang has left all her belongings to. Huge court fight coming up between him and her family members.

I found more information on that 64 Kennedy Road building. It's a 3-storey building, built in 1924.

In an article that requires registration to get to, it says:

<i>Conservationists said the building's historical significance was reflected in its Italian Renaissance style and features such as Doric columns and an art deco-style motif on its balcony railings.</i>

It is owned by descendants of the Ngan family, who ran the China Motor Bus company for decades as monopoly on the HK Island. Until the government took back its routes and gave them to Citybus and New World First Bus.

Sadly, there is nothing like the black and whites here in Hong Kong (I used to live in Singapore, and they were one of my favourite things about Singapore; I dated someone for much longer than I should have because he had a lovely bungalow on Nassim Hill Road�.) . However, if you go out to Shek O there are a number of very nice large seaside �bungalows� there built between WWI and WWII. You can not see a lot of them from the road, but can get a glimpse.

With regard to your pictures, the �middle-eastern� building is to the best of my knowledge a private house on Kennedy Road. I believe that the driveway to it is just past the petrol station on the right side of the road coming from Central. Or walking from Bowen Road, go to Bowen Drive, turn right and walk downhill down Bowen Drive to Kennedy Road, turn right and you should come to the driveway for the house pretty shortly. I don�t think you can see much more of the house from Kennedy Road.

The arched brick building I am fairly sure is part of the Carmel School on Borrett Road which is a Jewish middle and high school. (It started out as the British military hospital, was built in 1901 or so, so your instincts were right. It�s not really �high up on the hill�, it�s still Mid-levels, so I was confused by your original description, but the picture was helpful.)

The last two buildings in the third picture I don�t recognize, but again I think they are on Borret Road. Borrett Road winds around below and above Bowen in a bizarre fashion, it crosses Bowen just about where the Bayan tree grows out of the retaining wall if you are familiar with that tree. (Past Bowen Drive, but before you get to Magazine Gap Road). Go left and up the hill to Borrett. (If you know where the Island School is on Borrett, the Carmel School is quite close to this.)

I was not aware that the SARS outbreak started in a hotel (I was living in Zurich at the time between postings here) but did ask around at lunch and was told it was the Metropole Hotel, which is now the Metropark Kowloon. I would be surprised if this hotel existed during the time in which Golden Boy is set, which I recall is the 1950s, but perhaps it was in another location or earlier version of the hotel in its present location.

And as for colonial buildings, sorry, I also <i>completely</i> forgot the Helena May on Garden Road/Cotton Tree Drive. This is also from about 1880. Really lovely inside and out. Go to http://www.helenamay.com/.

Cicerone is absolutely correct about the Metropole (now Metropark Kowloon). That structure is built in the late 80's.

I don't know anything about The Golden Boy, but reading the Amazon.com review, its says the author first stayed at the Grand Hotel. Grand Hotel was in Tsimshatsui, at 14 Carnarvon Road. When I was growing up in Hong Kong in the 70's, it was still there, and wasn't that new. So, I think it was there where he stayed.

It had been closed (or torn down) long before SARS.

Bingo! 64 Kennedy Road and Carmel School/British Military hospital! Armed with Cicerone's instruction, I should have plenty of walks planned for this fall. http://www.amo.gov.hk/form/historical.pdf
should be helpful as well. RK - I couldn't find your cited description of 64 Kennedy Rd online, sounds interesting - so is it vacant now? which site is that? Martin Booth stayed at the Fourseas Hotel for quite a few years - 75 Waterloo Road Kowloon (p46). It is indeed the site of the newer Metropole Hotel. I wondered when the Fourseas was pulled down. Booth also lived on 133 Boundary Street (p126) - I haven't ventured out to check what it is now. Another place he stayed for about a year was Apartment 8 Mount Austin Mansions (p166). I am not sure if it is the same as 8 Mount Austin. The book is an enjoyable read - I would recommend it. IMO, the Black and White's are gorgeous for entertaining but may be not as practical to live in for too long. Many of my friends lived in B&amp;Ws and mold, mosquitos and snakes stories abound. Their book collections all turned yellow from the climate. I do love their achitectural beauty. Do you know why they weren't built in HK?

Sophia - That is a South China Morning Post article from 2005. I found a free temporary subscription to some foreign library to get access to it. Otherwise, it's by subscription only.

I grew up at 81 Waterloo Road in the 70's. By that time, there was no Fourseas Hotel, and I believe that site was the Fourseas Bowling Alley. It was later torn down to build the Metropole.

133 Boundary Street has definitely also been rebuilt. It is now part of the Kent Court apartment complex.

8 Mount Austin Road is now the address for &quot;The Mount Austin&quot;, a series of ultra-luxury homes and apartments, which are also new. I think I remember there was a fairly large (and old) apartment building there in the 70's and 80's, which could be the &quot;Mount Austin Mansion&quot; in the book.

Thank you Cicerone and RK. Will report back this fall on my outings