Qualla: Sham Chung

Sham Chung: Introduction

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Underwaterbuffalo, CC BY-SA 4.0. There is no road to Sham Chung. Getting there requires a small ferry, a kai-to, threading through the islands and inlets of Tolo Channel — or a hike through the hills that link it to neighboring valleys. That absence of a road is why Sham Chung still exists the way it does: a Hakka village on the southern edge of a sea channel in the northeastern New Territories, where the fossils in the coastline are older than the farmers who once worked the land above them.

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Image: Underwaterbuffalo | CC BY-SA 4.0

Sham Chung: Older Than Memory

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Underwaterbuffalo, CC BY-SA 4.0. People have been at Sham Chung for a very long time. Archaeological excavations at the nearby Wong Tei Tung site have uncovered evidence of Late Paleolithic and Early Neolithic occupation, suggesting human presence stretching back thousands of years before any written record. The...

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Image: Underwaterbuffalo | CC BY-SA 4.0

Sham Chung: A Coast Written in Stone

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Underwaterbuffalo, CC BY-SA 4.0. The shoreline below the village tells a different kind of story. The stretch of coast between Sham Chung Wan and Tung King Pai — a 26-hectare belt designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1985 — contains one of Hong Kong's richest fossil assemblages. Bivalves, ammonite...

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Image: Underwaterbuffalo | CC BY-SA 4.0

Sham Chung: Saved From the Fairway

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wpcpey, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the future of Sham Chung looked rather different. Sun Hung Kai Properties, one of Hong Kong's largest developers, planned to build a golf course and recreation center on the land. In 1999, part of the natural wetland was converted to a grass fie...

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Image: Wpcpey | CC BY-SA 4.0

Sham Chung: Life at the End of the Ferry Route

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 圍棋一級, CC BY-SA 3.0. For visitors, reaching Sham Chung is part of the experience. The scheduled kai-to ferry service runs a route from Ma Liu Shui through Sham Chung, Lai Chi Chong, Tap Mun, Ko Lau Wan, and Chek Keng to Wong Shek Pier — a journey that passes through some of the least-developed coasta...

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Image: 圍棋一級 | CC BY-SA 3.0