Lau Shui Heung Country Trail is within the Pat Sin Leng Country park. The trail can be longer if you decide to visit Cloudy Hill and Hok Tau Reservoir, or it can be shorter if you decide to go straight to Lau Shui Heung Reservoir for a picnic and not do the trail at all.
Difficulty Rating: 6/10
Duration: 2 hours (As mentioned earlier, it can be longer if you decide to hit a few other spots, keep reading for more details on that!)
Cell Service: 5/5
Instagrammability: 5/5 (The gorgeous lake pictured above is the most scenic spot. There are a few other scenic viewpoints along the trail but it is mostly just a good workout. The area is however renowned for its butterfly population so you'll see a ton of colourful butterflies through your hike.)
How To Get There:
If you'd like to drive there instead, that's also a possibility. There is a parking space (image 2) if you take the first exit from the roundabout (image 1) and go down Hok Tau Road towards Hok Tau Reservoir. Once parked, walk back to the roundabout.
Hiking Directions:
Once you get off at the Pat Sin Leng Country Park Roundabout, (image 1) walk along Hok Tau Road following the signs towards Lau Shui Heung Reservoir to get to the Lau Shui Heung Country Trail Entrance.
You will pass by a viewpoint, some signs (image 3) and a bathroom. Continue following the signs towards Lau Shui Heung Country Trail.
After a couple more minutes, you will reach a dead-end with two trail heads for 'Lau Shui Heung Country Trail'. We took the one on the left (image 4) with stairs heading upwards. This is a loop so you will end up coming out of the other trail head on your way back.
The entire route is a paved path surrounded by trees and bushes (image 5).
20 minutes into the trail, there will be an intersection with a sign towards 'Hok Tau Reservoir' (image 6) which is part of the Wilson Trail.
You can either continue along the Lau Shui Heung Country Trail or take a detour to go check out the Hok Tau Reservoir. The Lau Shui Heung Country Trail loop is marked in red in the map below (image 7). The yellow star on the map shows the intersection. We followed the blue line which is part of the Wilson Trail towards Hok Tau Reservoir.
The trail heads downwards towards the reservoir (image 8) and there is a gorgeous viewpoint about 10-15 minutes into the walk. As we wanted to ensure we had sufficient time to have a picnic at Mirror Lake, we turned back after the viewpoint to complete the Lau Shui Heung loop and didn't go all the way down to Hok Tau Reservoir.
Below is a closer look of what you can see from the viewpoint!
Once you're back on the Lau Shui Heung Country trail (red route pictured in image 7 above), continue following the signs towards Lau Shui Heung Reservoir. After about 30-40 minutes, you will be descending again (image 10) with views of Shenzhen in front of you.
At the end of the loop, there will be an entrance to the lake (image 11). The lake looked incredible and we found a quiet spot to set up a picnic with food and board games. More pictures of the like below!
The reservoir is lined with trees. The first batch of 40 saplings were planted into two rows to form a corridor for visitors in 2012. The saplings grew up around 2016 and the planting area was doubled to to form conifer woods of over 100 trees. The trees have now matured and the reddish-brown tree corridor attracts many visitors every winter!
Below is the view of the reservoir on our way back to the roundabout.
To get back by public transport, either take the minibus back from the roundabout where you started, or call for a taxi. Hope you enjoy the trail!