Clearwater Bay Beach

On Saturday Hannah and I decided to give Mum some time off, and go for an outing on our own.  Hannah chose Clearwater Bay beach because she wanted to play in the sand.

We dug a nice big hole

Clearwater Bay is one of the closest official swimming beach to our new home and I wanted to check-out the transportation during the off-season.  We thought the beach was closed for swimming but actually it wasn't and we regretted leaving our swimsuits at home.

On the way home we had a nice meal together at Tseung Kwan O.  

Tap Mun

In mid-Nov we decided to take advantage of the lovely autumn weather and take a boat trip to Tap Mun ('Grass Island'), one of the outlying islands in the north-east New Territories (wiki link).

The ferry service departed from a pier at the Science Park, just up the road.  The 2 hour route was north-east out the entrance of the Tolo harbor and then east to Tap Mun.  Most of the coast is country park and the ferry made several stops along the way to drop-off or pick-up hikers.

Looking back to Science Park.

Ma on Shan

I was surprised to see that the entrance to the harbor was largely closed off by a boom leaving just a narrow entrance controlled by a naval check-point.

Looking back to the entrance of Tolo Harbour and the check-point.

Tap Mun island

Looking south from Tap Mun

Disembarking from the ferry at Tap Mun

We only had about an hour on the island as we wanted to take the return ferry to be home by late afternoon to prepare Hannah for school.  But we had time to visit the look-out point and meet some locals.

Looking south-east from the lookout.

Camp site on the lookout

Return trip.  Looking south to the entrance to the Shing Mun river.

Ferry pier at Science park.