So Lo Pun
Back in the day, before the 1970s, there were many small villages scattered all over the New Territories. The villagers lived off the land, mostly farming and fishing but also animal husbandry. The latter is the direct cause of the herds of feral cattle and water buffalo roaming the country parks.
Many of these villages are reachable only by foot or by boat. Nevertheless they were doing well, selling their produce and fish to the markets of Sha Tau Kok and Tai Po Market. However in the 1960s cheap imports from the mainland made farming in Hong Kong largely uneconomical, and robbed of their livelyhoods many villages were abandoned. Add in some ghost stories, and some were completely empty almost overnight.
So Lo Pun is one of these abandoned villages, however in recent years there has been renewed activity. In 2009 hikers reported clearing of part of the village land of trees and other vegetation, causing the government to step in. The owner of the land (the village is not part of the country park) responded by closing a footpath that runs through the village and over his land, and GCZ82R was archived as a result.
What happened related to this conflict I do not know. Over the past year or so I have seen many references to people taking this route and visiting So Lo Pun, and today finally I got to do so, too. We walked from Luk Keng via Yung Shue Au (which is a ghost village!) to So Lo Pun, and encountered many hikers, likely coming from Lai Chi Wo.
In the village one house is obviously still in use, but just for occasional short stays. To the south of the main village on what was originally their fields fruit trees have recently been planted. During our visit there was even some activity by gardeners clearing vegetation.
The old cache was still there, the contents in better than expected shape, so I decided to recycle the salvageable parts and create a new cache there. New container, some notebook pages to log your visit (it won't be a busy cache I'm sure), and the old swag that's still in good condition.
This cache is meant to be easy to find as getting there is hard enough, so a spoiler photo has been added.
Getting there.
Three options. Neither is quick nor easy.
- Walk from Luk Keng via Yung Shue Au, follow signs "Lai Chi Wo". This takes about three hours and is mostly flat, except for a 100m climb between Yung Shue Au and So Lo Pun.
- Walk from Luk Keng, then from Kuk Po take the trail over Tsim Kong Tung Au. There is a "road closed" sign along the route not far from Kuk Po; it used to be a maintained footpath but has fallen into disrepair. It's steep and rough but much shorter, can be done in less than two hours from Luk Keng. Follow the ribbons.
- From Wu Kau Tang walk via Sham A Chung and Lai Chi Wo. This is also a fairly easy going route, well maintained footpaths, takes about four hours.
The walk is very nice, the area is hilly but not as high and mountainous as most of Hong Kong. It is covered in lush forests, with crystal clear streams running everywhere. Lots of life in these streams, too, we saw fish and rather large shrimp (about 8 cm body) in the stream just south of So Lo Pun. It's just a great place to walk around, without too strenuous climbs (though Tsim Kong Tung Au wasn't that easy).