Top Ten China Classic Adventures

Beyond the high-rises of Hong Kong's Kowloon, 60 miles of serene hiking trails—named after one of the territory's last colonial governors, Sir Murray MacLehose—extend across the rural New Territories. Starting at the Sai Kung peninsula, northeast of Kowloon, the trail winds up around the High Island Reservoir, past a series of jagged rhyolite cliffs and sheer headlands dimpled with hidden coves. To the west, hike toward 2,800-foot Tai Mo Shan (Big Hat Mountain), the highest point and geographical center of Hong Kong, which overlooks the Shing Mun Valley.