Feel the calm at the Big Buddha and Po Lin Monastery

Ngong Ping, Lantau Island’s mountainous home of the Big Buddha has long been known for its monasteries and its refreshing highland climate, which is usually several degrees cooler than Hong Kong’s urban areas. That’s what drew a group of Buddhist monks to the area in 1906, when they chose it as the location for a monastery that was initially known as Tai Mao Pung — “The Big Hut” — before it was later renamed Po Lin Monastery. The monastery was joined in 1918 by the Chi Chuk Lam nunnery, and Ngong Ping eventually filled up with many small Buddhist temples.

It was the ideal place for thoughtful meditation, far from the bustling commercial centre of Hong Kong, hard to reach even from other parts of Lantau Island. That’s what drew British lawyer Brook Bernacchi to Ngong Ping not long after he arrived in Hong Kong in 1945. He was the first Westerner to settle on Lantau when he built a tea plantation next to the monastery in 1948. His family, meanwhile, made use of the plantation as a weekend resort, travelling for three hours along bumpy roads to an idyllic retreat that felt very far from Hong Kong. 

Driver loves walking to the base of Lantau Peak, also known as Phoenix Mountain, particularly in the early evening. “With the view over Shek Pik Reservoir and the islands in the distance, it's magical,” she says. She also remembers walking up what she and her siblings called Holy Mountain — better known as Nei Lak Shan — which lies beyond a cluster of Buddhist shrines. “I would sit on the outer ledge, dogs at my side, staring over the myriad pathways that weaved across the plateau.” Lantau’s rural, verdant environment attracts abundant wildlife, with frequent sightings of soaring Black Kites and gentle, free-roaming cattle further adding to the sense of calm.

Martin Williams, an outdoor enthusiast and the author of The 25 Best Day Walks in Hong Kong, recommends the circular Country Trail that loops around Nei Lak Shan. If you're feeling particularly energetic, you could even walk all the way down to the MTR station in Tung Chung, a journey of about two hours. “The mix of woodland, scrub and grassland helps make for fabulous scenery, especially with nearby hills like Lantau Peak and the South China Sea below,” he says.