Tiptoe Through The Tulips

Tulips by the lake.

I am beginning to feel that flowers dictate my life. Last week I had other plans, but before I could do them, I got inundated with blogs about cherry blossoms. This week I knew where I was meant to be going, but got swamped with videos of tulips. I always feel the need to drop everything else and rush off and see flowers when they are ready to be seen since I know they don't last long.

There are not many places where you can find tulips in Hong Kong. Apparently there is a farm in the middle of nowhere in Sai Kung that grows them, but to get there by public transport is a long journey, followed by a long hike. More recently the owners of Lake House in Tai Po have been growing them and that's where I was heading.

Lake House, situated on Little Egret Lake, is a strange place. I first spotted it years ago from the train line when I was travelling to Tai Po on the KCR. I was always curious about it. Then, to my surprise, I ended up there on a school trip and found it was an activity centre with an ethnographic museum and a very good restaurant. That was quite a long time ago. In recent times, it has been painted white and turned into restaurants, a wedding and event venue and an activity centre.

It looks old and it looks European, but neither of these assumptions are actually true. Lake House only dates back to the 1990's. It was built by Kerry Property Developers. They bought lots of land here and built a nearby upmarket residential neighborhood called Constellation Cove. The lake area and the mangroves around it are a conservation area, so they couldn't develop them, but they decided to build Lake House on the water's edge.

Last time I came here I took a bus from Tai Wo Station. This time I decided it might be interesting to walk here from Tai Po Market Station. I tried to work out a route on Google maps and had a rough idea of where I was going.

From Tai Po Market Station, I exited through Exit B and turned left on Nam Wan Road. I followed a sign for Tai Po Waterfront Park. Although I would like to revisit this park some time, I wasn't doing so this time. I was only using the signs for it to get me on the right road for the waterfront. After a few minutes, I reached a subway. Again I followed the sign for the park. I came out of the subway onto Kwong Fuk Road. I crossed a bridge over a river, pausing to take a photo of the dragon boats there.

Dragon boats on the river.

I continued straight and was soon at the bottom of Yuen Chau Tsai Park. I've explored this area before. At one time this was an island. There's a lovely old house here called Island House. It is currently owned by the World Wildlife Fund. This house was built in 1906 as the residence of the first British Police Magistrate in the New Territories. It was later used as the official residence of the North District Officer and even later still as the home of at least fifteen different District Commissioners. The last resident here was David Akers-Jones who became Chief Secretary of Hong Kong in 1985.

Looking at Island House.

Island House.

After passing Island House, I was on a waterfront walkway. This is part of the cycling trail that runs from Tai Wai to Tai Mei Tuk. There were quite a lot of people cycling here even on a week day. There were also lots and lots of egrets out on the water. In the distance I could see a boat being followed by a huge white cloud consisting of hundreds of birds. I could also see the leaning, spiral tower in Tai Po Waterfront Park.

Egrets.

Egrets.

Tai Po Waterfront Park in the distance.

I continued walking until I reached an old pier. I knew I had now reached the area I wanted to go to - Tai Po Kau. At one time there was a train station here and lots of people would disembark at this station and flock to this pier to catch boats to the Northeastern New Territories, Sai Kung or the Outlying Islands in Tolo Harbour. The railway station here was dismantled in the early 1990's and its site became Trackside Villas, which was once the staff quarters of the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation. Now this is a transitional rental housing estate. As for the pier, well, when the station closed, boats began leaving from Ma Liu Shui next to Chinese University Station instead of here, so it was no longer busy. For a while it was used by the Hong Kong Marine Police. Nowadays, it is used as a tide monitoring station by the Hong Kong Observatory. The only people on it when I visited were a small group of people fishing.

The old pier.

The old pier.

Looking at boats from the old pier.

Looking at boats from the old pier.

Just past the pier there is a subway. It's necessary to use this to get under the Tolo Highway if you want to go to the rest of Tai Po Kau. To continue my walk, I wanted to come out onto a narrow path on the same side of the railway line as the sea, but first I walked further through the tunnel so that I passed under the rail line and came out at Trackside Villas. It was difficult to know if anything of the old station had been retained. After a quick look, I had a feeling I may actually have been trespassing, I went back into the subway and took the exit for the path along the railway tracks. Facing the tracks, I headed left. I was hoping my map reading skills would prove to be accurate, because the path didn't look promising and I was the only person on it. Many people had dumped unwanted household items here. It was all a bit of a mess.

The Underpass.

Trackside Villas.

Trackside Villas.

The railway path.

Eventually I saw another subway. I was relieved as I knew I should be on the other side of the railway line. I walked down below the line and found that an old homeless Chinese man was living down here. It felt strange walking through, as if I was more or less wandering through his house. He was quite friendly and said: "Hello. How are you? Where are you going?" to me in English.

Anyway, after the subway, I had a choice of paths. I chose the one that was heading inland away from the railway, as I felt I must be near Lake House by this point, but that I was too close to the waterfront.

On the Google map I had seen something marked as The Ruined House and after walking a couple of minutes there in front of me was an old broken down house that must have been very impressive at one time, but was now being reclaimed by nature. I love stuff like this and found the broken down building very photogenic, but as I started photographing it, I nearly got run over by a bike that had crept up behind me without me hearing it. In fact quite a few cyclists passed me by. Then, when I was alone again, I got distracted by a rustling in the nearby trees and found myself looking through a wire fence at a monkey.

The Ruined House.

The Ruined House.

The Ruined House.

The Ruined House.

The Ruined House.

I headed on. There in front of me was another monkey. This one was much more visible. It was busily eating something. I stopped to photograph it, but it did not like this and threateningly pretended to move towards me. I think it thought I was going to rush it, steal its food and eat it myself. In case you are wondering, I had not planned to do this. Anyway, needless to say, it only had to move a millimetre towards me and I was off like a shot. I'm rather frightened of monkeys. They can give you a bad bite or scratch and this one was majorly grumpy.

Grumpy Monkey. Don't tell him I said that that.

As I rushed away, I encountered even more monkeys up ahead. These were less aggressive and I was able to photograph them without them paying any attention to me. Quite a few of them seemed to have been hanging around in a small abandoned shrine.

This monkey didn't mind having his photo taken.

Monkey.

The Shrine.

The Shrine.

Near the shrine, I went up a couple of stairs and emerged from the forest path near the entrance to Lake House. I crossed over a small river.

River near Lake House.

The areas with the tulips were near the entrance. Quite a lot of people were there photographing them. They were a very cheerful mass of bright colours. I particularly liked the yellow and red ones.

Tulips by the trees.

Enjoying the flowers.

Enjoying the flowers.

Beautiful Tulips.

Gorgeous tulips.

A mass of colour.

Red and Yellow Tulips.

Red and Pink Tulips.

Selfie with tulips.

After photographing the tulips, I wandered over towards Lake House. I think quite a few people were there enjoying its restaurants. Just past the house there was an area selling plants and bulbs. It was nicely done with places to pose to take photos and a little fountain.

The area with flower stalls.

The area with flower stalls.

The foundation.

Bulbs for sale.

Billows Restaurant.

I returned to the tulip area, then passed through it to walk along the edges of the lake. There were some beautiful views of Lake House from here.

Lake House with reflection.

Front view of Lake House.

Boating hut on Little Egret Lake.

Looking back at Lake House from the far side of the lake.

Selfie with the lake.

There were also some lovely magnolias, camelias and bauhinias. I'm not sure where I would have ended up if I'd kept on this path. Something to explore in the future. Seeing the magnolias reminded me I need to return to Shing Mun Valley Park to see these soon.

Purple Magnolias.

White Magnolias.

White Magnolias.

Magnolia bud.

Magnolia buds.

Magnolias against a blue sky.

Bauhinias.

Little Egret Lake is marketed as a lake of all seasons. In summer there's a kind of floating obstacle course in the water, so you must be able to swim here. In autumn there are lanterns in the water for Mid Autumn Festival and in winter I think there is something similar for Chinese New Year. In spring it's the tulips that draw in the crowds.

As I walked back towards the tulip area, I saw a huge monkey walking along the fence. A woman was standing really close to the fence to take a photo. Her friend pointed out the large monkey right behind her and she got a bit of a shock. The monkey was totally disinterested in all the people though and just kept on calmly walking through them.

Monkey on a fence.

Monkey on a fence.

Monkeys Warning Sign.

I had decided instead of walking back the way I had come. I would walk up past Constellation Cove to Tai Po Road. The houses here really do look nice and I have seen a picture of their swimming pool online. It looks great, but I'd imagine it would be pretty costly to live here.

Constellation Cove.

Constellation Cove.

The reason I wanted to go up to Tai Po Road was when I came to this area to walk in the nature reserve at Tai Po Kau, I had also visited a small park called Tai Po Kau Park. When I was writing my blog and looking for information on it, I had seen some photos of spring blossom with beautiful little birds flying in to drink the nectar from them. Since it was spring, I reckoned it was worth another look. When I got there, there were two elderly Chinese men with cameras with powerful telephoto lenses, standing motionless staring at the blossom. They had obviously come here to photograph the little birds. I wondered if they might be the people who had put up the gorgeous photos online.

Sign for Tai Po Kau Park.

Blossom in Tai Po Kau Park.

Foundation in Tai Po Kau Park.

Anyway they were very focused, while I got distracted, because into the beautiful, tidy, pristine, park came two big monkeys who proceeded to walk to all the bins and search them for food. The first one threw rubbish everywhere before sitting down happily with a discarded rice box. The second threw everything out of the next bin along, till he came across something he fancied. I was very amused by the fact that the two men were so focused on photographing birds that they did not even react to the chaos taking place all around them. I thought to myself: "Total wallies, unbelievable that they can be so detached from reality." With this thought, I turned round and almost fell over a third monkey who was standing right behind me and no I had not noticed him coming. He looked at me with utter contempt, as only a monkey can do, then strode off to a skip which he immediately pulled open and began throwing its contents everywhere.

Monkey one.

Happy with his rice box.

Monkey One. Happy with his lunch box.

Monkey Two.

Monkey Two.

Monkey Two.

Monkey Three.

Monkey Three.

By this point I was feeling a little monkeyed out. I decided it must be time to head home.

View from the bus home.