About Silvermine Waterfall
The Silvermine Waterfall (銀礦瀑布 [Yín Kuàng Pùbù] or [ngan4 kwong3 buk6 bou3 in Cantonese]; also spelled Silver Mine Waterfall) is one of the easier waterfalls to access from Hong Kong’s bustling and intensely developed metropolis.
The waterfall itself actually consists of a pair of split segments tumbling side-by-side on the River Silver, where the larger left side may drop a cumulative height of about 20m or so.
While its size is modest and its flow is fickle (said to be best visited after heavy rains have fallen), it provided a refreshing contrast to the sheer energy and quantity of people in Hong Kong’s centre.
In fact, waterfalls in Hong Kong (香港 [Xiānggǎng]) in general are remarkable because they’re something most people don’t even associate with this part of China’s Special Autonomous Region (SAR).
Heck, we weren’t even aware of them when we first visited Hong Kong back in April 2009!
Not only did pursuing the Silvermine Waterfall provide us with a relaxing and low-key Naturesque experience in the bush, but it also allowed us to experience a beach as well as a cave (more like a former mine entrance).
We even got to witness the famous Hong Kong skyline from the waters of the Victoria Harbour since we managed to make our visit via ferry.
Speaking of the ferry, it’s one of the main reasons why visiting the Silvermine Waterfall was as easy and as straightforward as it was, and the excursion description below is based on this method of visitation.
Silvermine Waterfall Excursion Description – Ferry Logistics
We began our visit by taking the MTR (Mass Transit Rail) to the Central Station (which is on Hong Kong Island), where we then proceeded to walk towards the piers at Victoria Harbour.
I’ll get into the details of that part of the logistics in the directions section of this write-up below.
Anyways, the ferry that we targeted was the one that goes to Mui Wo, which took off from Central Pier No.6.
The walk to get there from the MTR Central Station took us around 15 minutes or so along a network of elevated walkways above the road traffic and construction sites below.
Silvermine Waterfall Excursion Description – The Hike
Once at the Mui Wo Ferry Dock, we then walked past the Mui Wo Cooked Food Market and Mui Wo Ferry Pier Public Toilet onto the Mui Wo Waterfront Promenade towards the Silvermine Beach Resort (it took us about 10-15 minutes).
At the Silvermine Beach Resort and Silvermine Beach, we had a choice of taking the Mui Wo Chung Hau Street to the left or going around the resort to the right along Tung Wan Tau Road before veering left (not crossing the Wang Tong River bridge).
Both ways eventually meet at the Chung Hau Tsuen Public Toilet near the end of the drivable part of Chung Shing Street.
Beyond the toilet and local car park there, we then walked a narrower concrete path that went along Wang Tong River before reaching a signed fork about 200m (or about 5 minutes walk) from the Chung Hau Tsuen Public Toilet.
We kept left at this fork to continue towards the “Silvermine Cave” for another 15 minutes or so.
In this stretch, the concrete path undulated past some banyan trees, open fields, and private residences towards a junction with the Olympic Trail at the end of an incline (there’s some signage commemorating China’s hosting of the 2008 Olympics).
At this junction, we made a sharp right to follow along a narrower concrete path to continue towards the Silvermine Cave and Silvermine Waterfall.
The path in the other direction went towards the Pak Ngan Heung Public Toilet and a Man Mo Temple.
After continuing briefly along the path towards the waterfall, we reached another signed fork with the Silvermine Waterfall already visible to the right while a sign pointed uphill to the left towards the Silvermine Cave.
Keeping to the right, we approached a viewing area just past a building (under construction during our visit) with picnic tables, a shelter, and a partial view of the Silvermine Waterfall before us.
There were concrete steps leading below the shelter towards a fairly rough and slippery stream crossing to get onto a rocky area in between the split tiers of the Silvermine Waterfall for a less obstructed look at both waterfalls.
But aside from that, this was the turnaround spot as far as visiting the waterfall was concerned.
I did explore up the other fork, which went briefly up towards the Silvermine Cave, which featured a pavilion, a sealed off mine entrance (not really a cave), and a view back towards Silver Mine Bay.
I could have extended this hike further uphill towards the Pearl Waterfall, but that excursion will have to wait for another time.
The hiking part of this excursion from Mui Wo Ferry Dock and back covered a distance of about 2km each way (4km round-trip; not including the 150m detour to Silvermine Cave and/or 100m detour to Silvermine Beach) and it took us under 2 hours in total.
This included roughly 30 minutes of chilling at the Silvermine Waterfall.
Authorities
The Silvermine Waterfall resides near the town of Mui Wo on Lantau Island in the Islands District of the New Territories Region of Hong Kong. It is adminstered by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department of the Hong Kong Government. For the latest conditions or other inquiries, you may want to try the Hong Kong Tourism Board website.
We managed to get to Mui Wo and ultimately the Silvermine Waterfall through a combination of mass transit and ferry services from Tsim Sha Tsui MTR Station.
It’s worth mentioning that while we found this was the most convenient option for reaching the Silvermine Waterfall from central Hong Kong, it is possible to take a bus from Tung Chung Station to Mui Wo Ferry Dock.
However, Tung Chung Station is closer to the Hong Kong International Airport (both also on Lantau Island with Mui Wo), and it does involve going a rather roundabout route from the city centre via the Tung Chung (orange) MTR line.
Thus, for the remainder of this section, I’ll focus on how we managed to access the start of the hike to the Silvermine Waterfall via the ferry and mass transit option.
Note that regarding mass transit, we opted to save time by getting an Octopus card and putting in the minimum deposit (which was $200 HKD for us though not all of that balance was available).
Also note that this does not save money because there are convenience and handling fees when you seek a refund for the unused balance on the card, but it saves you a lot of time fumbling through cash trying to pay as you go.
So from Tsim Sha Tsui MTR Station, we took the Tsuen Wan (red) line south towards Central Station.
Then, we got out of the Central MTR Station and walked roughly 10-15 minutes towards the Central Pier No.6 (or Mui Wo Ferry Pier).
Note that this walk is on a network of elevated walkways to avoid having to cross heavily-used streets as well as construction zones below, but it also provides photo ops as well as detours towards shopping areas.
So this walk can easily take longer than 15 minutes if you happen to make any of these detours.
Anyways, once on the Central Pier No.6 (the Octopus Card also works to get past the turnstiles here), we then waited for our ferry to show up.
On most days, the ferries take off every 20-40 minutes (see schedule here) with most of them being fast ferries taking around a half-hour.
The fast ferries cost twice as much as ordinary ferries ($34.1 HKD/adult vs. $17.2 HKD/adult as of November 2024), but they take half as long.
Once the ferry lands and we exit the dock, we then kept right going past the bus stops to approach the hike as described above on this page (past the Mui Wo Cooked Food Market and the Mui Wo Ferry Pier Public Toilet).
For geographical context, Mui Wo was about 16km (25 minutes drive) southeast of Tung Chung, about 45km (about an hour drive) west of Kowloon, about 49km (about an hour drive) west of Hong Kong City, and about 55km (over an hour drive) southwest of Shenzhen, China.
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