Kei Lun Shan, Lok Ma Chau

Kei Lun Shan is a fairly nondescript hill in the northern New Territories that commands an excellent view over the new border checkpoint at Lok Ma Chau. It’s sandwiched about half way between Yuen Long and Sheung Shui and so can be reached by using the minibus services that run from Fanling, or by catching a cab. If you have a bit of time then walking is always an option, but on this occasion time was against us.On this misty and initially cold day I was meeting Mr David Bellis who is responsible for the fantastic gwulo.com website. He has a strong interest in wartime Hong Kong and one of the many ongoing Gwulo projects is to map out the systems of tunnels, pillboxes and observation points used by both the allies and Japanese forces during the second world war.

Why had we chosen Kei Lun Shan? Well, on one of my less busy occasions I was trawling through some photos on Panoramio (the GoogleEarth related photo website – actually come to think about it, this was a direct result of my hours of initially fruitless searching for the Bruce/Sammo fight location – and came across a photo mapped on GoogleEarth, that pointed to what looked like some sort of pillbox nestled into the hillside of Kei Lun Shan.

I pointed the photo out to David one day (hmmm, this is going back to around July now) and we made an appointment to check it out when the weather had cooled and the snakes were a bit more sleepy.

So on a cool and misty morning we met up at Fanling Station and jumped in a cab for the 15 minute ride (cost about $50) to Kei Lun Shan village and the foot of the hill we wanted to climb. It took two attempts to get a cabby who knew where we wanted to go and thankfully David’s Cantonese is vastly better than mine we got there and arrived at the bottom of a service road which led up to the villages freshwater supply tank.

Unfortunately I was suffering heavily with cold induced sneezes (possibly pollution or hayfever or more likely a combination of all three) and could only offer David a hearty atchoo!! in response to most of his questions and opinion searching, but we eventually made it to the site shown on the photo and found not a pillbox but some sort of concrete shack with small windows, metal doors and a whole heap of mess on the inside.

Being non-military, neither of us really had a clue to its original use but the chimney hole, which was made of a metal pipe that went up and away (in right angles) from the main shack in a manner that implied nobody wanted hand grenades dropped down it, made us think it was built for military purposes. My best guess would be ammunition stores or the like. But I’ll be honest, I really am guessing.

Further exploration around both sides of the main ridge line revealed a whole load of horseshoe-shaped bunker-type holes, some of them fairly rough, others with quite clean angles in them , and one even with concrete lining. It seems as though the hillside was prepared for some sort of heavy military or perhaps para-military activity, but it really isn’t clear if it was allied forces, Japanese invasion forces or perhaps guerilla forces (e.g East River Brigade) who made the holes.

I won’t go into too much detail as I am pretty sure David will want to do that on gwulo.com, he has all the photos and I was really there for moral support, and I guess to call the rescue team should he accidentally fall into a Japanese tunnel – but suffice to say his eagle eyes found a few remarkable discoveries including some very well-kept concreted bunkers/observation points. Hard to believe they were 60 years old given their condition.

On an aside, the climb up Kei Lun Shan is fairly easy, its not particularly steep by HK standards and it was also deserted when we were there. No one was around. The view at the tops affords a fantastic vista over the border at Lok Ma Chau into Shenzhen, as well as far west and east within HK territory. Just a shame that the day wasn’t a bit clearer for us.

Anyway, after cool start the sun came out and the place warmed up and gave us a breezy walk down the hillside towards the service reservoir and the road into Kwu Tung. It comes out right next to the Kwu Tung Market and so lots of transport options back to Fanling.

View from Kei Lun Shan

(click on the image for an extended view)