{"id":7516,"date":"2026-04-21T06:52:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T06:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=7516"},"modified":"2026-04-21T06:52:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T06:52:17","slug":"21-hong-kong-and-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=7516","title":{"rendered":"21. HONG KONG AND HOME."},"content":{"rendered":"

Linda took us to Brisbane airport on her way to work.\u00a0 A fairly early start (05.30!) to miss the worst of the motorway traffic.\u00a0 As soon as baggage check-in opened, we were in.\u00a0 We really didn’t want to get bumped off the flight!\u00a0 And there we are – breakfast in the lounge …<\/p>\n

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… and a close up view of our transport to Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

\"\"Flight CX 150 took us up the east coast all the way to the York Peninsula before we broke left a bit towards HK.\u00a0 From the left side of the aircraft (our side) we had fabulous views of the coastal towns starting with Redcliffe, Scarborough and Deception Bay.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Then the South end of Bribie Island with the settlements of Bongaree and Bellara and the Pumicestone Passage clearly visible with the mainland in the distance.<\/p>\n

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The enormous scale of the “breakthrough” (“A”) …<\/p>\n

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… at the north end of Bribie Island near Caloundra (“B”) was apparent from 20,000 feet.\u00a0 The attempts to close the gap and reopen the old channel (“C”) at Caloundra are going to be fraught with a lot of very expensive works!\u00a0 Fighting nature is never an easy game!\u00a0 Talking of games, that bit of sand (“C”) is host to the Sunday evening frisby competitions in which Robin, Jack and (sometimes) Benji play.\u00a0 The fabulous views of the coastline continued for over 1,800 kms past Townsville, Cairns and Port Douglas before we turned inland.<\/p>\n

As the sun set, we arrived at Hong Kong and just before landing we flew over the\u00a0Hong Kong\u2013Zhuhai\u2013Macau Bridge (HZMB).<\/p>\n

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We got a fleeting glimpse of this approximately 55 km (34 miles) long bridge.\u00a0 Straight as an arrow.\u00a0 The world’s longest sea-crossing.\u00a0 It consists of a 30 km (18 mile) main bridge, a 7 km (4 mile) undersea tunnel, and connecting link roads.\u00a0 It spans the Pearl River Delta and connects Hong Kong, Macau, and Zhuhai.\u00a0 The last (and only) time we went to Macau from HK, we had to go by ferry!<\/span><\/p>\n

Our room in the city was on the 18th floor of the New World Millennium Hotel.\u00a0 With a panoramic view of Victoria Harbour, the stretch of water separating HK Island from downtown Kowloon.\u00a0 By day …<\/p>\n

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… and by night!<\/p>\n

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From the hotel there’s a lovely waterside footpath heading west to the “Avenue of Stars”.\u00a0 A 440 metre long parade of plaques honouring 116 famous actors and actresses.\u00a0 I say famous, but having checked the list on-line, I recognized just one name!\u00a0 Bruce Lee, of course!\u00a0 There are a number of statues as well as hand prints and signatures.\u00a0 But no one I’ve ever met!<\/p>\n

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This is the “Hong Kong Film Awards Statue”, a 6 metre tall bronze sculpture depicting the award statuette presented to recipients.\u00a0 Allegedly, she’s a goddess holding a rather expensive looking pearl.\u00a0 I haven’t met her either!<\/p>\n

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Victoria Harbour is well served by touristy, junky looking cruise boats.\u00a0 Day and night.<\/p>\n

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The walkway is immaculately tidy considering the huge numbers of visitors.\u00a0 We walked for a good fifteen minutes before we saw the first bit of litter.\u00a0 They even had little boats out collecting floating rubbish from the harbour!<\/p>\n

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And almost no one was smoking!\u00a0 In fact, since 1982, smoking has been increasingly controlled in Hong Kong and is now strictly prohibited in most public areas in the city.\u00a0 As of 1st January this year, fixed penalty fines have been doubled to HK$ 3,000.\u00a0 It appears that e-cigarettes are due to be banned totally in the near future.<\/p>\n

Each evening in Victoria\u00a0 Harbour at 8 pm, there is a 14 minute “multi-media show”.\u00a0 “The Symphony of Lights”.\u00a0 It features synchronized lasers, lights, and music from over 40 skyscrapers.\u00a0 Allegedly the world’s largest permanent light and sound show.\u00a0 Sadly, it wasn’t up to standard while we were there.\u00a0 Maybe something to do with the low clouds.<\/p>\n

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This is what it should look like, and indeed did look like last time we were here …<\/p>\n

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Some of the waterfront buildings have massive light shows mounted on their facade.\u00a0 Flowers,\u00a0 plants, dolphins and birds swaying, swimming and flapping across peoples’ office windows.\u00a0 Must be a bit distracting for anyone near the windows on the night shift!<\/p>\n

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We visited Sai Kung on the recommendation of brother John.\u00a0 It was good to break out of the maze of high-rise buildings.\u00a0 The 20 km trip to the northeast might have involved a train ride a couple of bus rides another train and a bus.\u00a0 Plus six short walks between transports.\u00a0 So we took a taxi!\u00a0 Door to door.\u00a0 Easy!\u00a0 The WM Hotel for a coffee.\u00a0 Then a walk on the coastal path.<\/p>\n

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The shallow waters had literally hundreds of paddleboards and kayaks moored and waiting for the tourist season to get going.<\/p>\n

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Walking into town we passed some signs saying that kites must be flown respectfully and with due care for passing pedestrians.\u00a0 \u00a0OK.\u00a0 But there were no kites being flown either respectfully or otherwise!\u00a0 The path became more formal and wider as we approached the town centre, Sai Kung Square.<\/p>\n

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Past the bus station (one of those we had elected not to use on the way here) and we arrived at the harbour and a row of kiosks flogging boat trips to a number of nearby islands.\u00a0 Opposite there was a fish restaurant with tanks of fish, cuttlefish and prawns.<\/p>\n

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… and just round the corner …<\/p>\n

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Here too, there are boats out litter-picking!<\/p>\n

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Anyway.\u00a0 Enough for the day.\u00a0 Retracing our steps we encountered two kite flyers, flying their kites very respectfully – and at great height.\u00a0 Back via the bus, train, walk combo?\u00a0 No chance … by taxi!<\/p>\n

Every morning we met Rupert.\u00a0 Rupert the robot!<\/p>\n

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Humming a relaxing tune and glowing in a haze of electric blue, his job was to deliver dirty crockery and cutlery to the kitchen area for renovation.\u00a0 His task was made difficult by people standing in front of him blocking his route.\u00a0 But his patience trumped that of the people interfering with his task!\u00a0 Robot 1, humans 0.\u00a0 I predict that problems with AI and robots are going to be major issues in the not so distant future.\u00a0 Rupert mark 2 will have arms to load himself unassisted (and to push humans out of his way)!<\/p>\n

Anyway, it’s time to get back in the air to complete our journey to the UK.\u00a0 Having checked in on-line two seconds after the 48 hour window commenced, we got to the airport 5 hours early and gave Cathay our cases to look after.\u00a0 We were in the lounge consuming a late breakfast happy in the knowledge that we had done everything possible to avoid being bumped off the flight!\u00a0 And bumped off we were not.<\/p>\n

The first “good news” from the flight deck was that due to “necessary re-routing”, our flight was going to take 15 hours.\u00a0 Two hours longer than scheduled.\u00a0 At least we had a captain and two seats!<\/p>\n

Usually, the flight path approximates to a great circle route. \u00a0On screen, a gently curving line.\u00a0 This time not so gentle!\u00a0 First we headed more or less north across China to the Mongolian border with the Gobi Desert straight ahead.\u00a0 Then we turned sharp left …<\/p>\n

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… over dramatic, snow covered, mountainous country.<\/p>\n

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As the snow disappeared, we flew over Kazakhstan with Moscow looming more or less straight ahead.\u00a0 As we arrived over the north end of the Caspian Sea …<\/p>\n

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… two things happened.\u00a0 \u00a0First we turned 90 degrees left to head south with Tehran now directly ahead of us and Russia off to our right.\u00a0 Second, my GPS tracker suddenly said we were in PERU!<\/p>\n

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Clearly someone is interfering with the GPS signal in this war-torn part of the world.\u00a0 (The Caspian Sea area – not Peru!).<\/p>\n

Shortly after this we turned sharp right over Azerbaijan and Georgia and found the Black Sea coast of Turkey.\u00a0 From here it was plain sailing across Europe and soon we had the bridges of the River Thames off to our right as we approached Heathrow.<\/p>\n

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We just missed a Hotel Hoppa bus – and they only run once an hour.\u00a0 One night in the Staybridge Suites Hotel and we were treated to a superbly smooth taxi ride home the next morning.\u00a0 \u00a0Thank you Stuart of Babbacombe Cabs.<\/p>\n

And that’s it.\u00a0 Home … and jet lag … and piles of washing … and failed heating … and planning our next trip to France in the caravan … in five weeks time!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linda took us to Brisbane airport on her way to work.\u00a0 A fairly early start (05.30!) to miss the worst of the motorway traffic.\u00a0 As soon as baggage check-in opened, we were in.\u00a0 We really didn’t want to get bumped… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vietnam-and-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7516"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7537,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7516\/revisions\/7537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}