New Territories Coast

The New Territories occupy the northern part of Hong Kong, bordered by Mirs Bay to the east, Deep Bay and the Shenzhen River to the north, and the open South China Sea approaches to the southeast. The Sai Kung peninsula, jutting into the southeastern corner of the New Territories, has the most complex coastline in Hong Kong — a succession of headlands, inlets, and offshore islands that together form the Sai Kung Country Park, the largest country park in the territory. The coastline here is volcanic in origin, and the hexagonal columnar jointing of the High Island area is one of the clearest expressions of this geology: 140-million-year-old rhyolite columns, formed as lava cooled and contracted, now exposed in sea cliffs along the outer peninsula. The tidal regime throughout the New Territories coast is mixed semidiurnal. Two unequal high waters and two unequal low waters occur each day, with spring ranges of approximately 1.8 to 2.0 metres. The diurnal inequality — the difference in height between the two daily highs or the two daily lows — is substantial in Hong Kong, driven by the interaction of the South China Sea tidal wave with the local geography. On some days in summer, the inequality is large enough that the lower low water is effectively a single dominant low, exposing the intertidal zone for an extended period. Sai Kung town serves as the base for exploring the eastern New Territories coast. The town waterfront has kaido (water taxi) operators who ferry visitors to beaches not reachable by road: Tai Long Wan (Big Wave Bay), a four-beach complex on the outer South China Sea coast, is the most sought after. The hike in via the MacLehose Trail takes 2.5 hours from the town; the kaido alternative cuts this to 30 minutes by sea. Tai Long Wan faces northeast and is exposed to South China Sea swell — autumn brings residual typhoon swell that creates beach break waves on all four beaches, from the relatively sheltered Sai Wan to the fully exposed Tung Wan. For anglers, the numerous rocky headlands and island passages of Sai Kung offer bottom fishing for grouper, snapper, and sea bream, with the flood tide the productive window as fish move inshore along the rocky reef edges.