Hong Kong Wetland Park

Hong Kong Wetland Park is a 61-hectare nature reserve in the New Territories that most visitors never hear about — a restored wetland of mangroves, mudflats, reed beds, and freshwater ponds that is home to 260 bird species, including the endangered black-faced spoonbill, and that demonstrates the remarkable biodiversity of a territory where 75% of the land is countryside despite the urban density of the remaining 25%.

The park was created in 2006 from a former ecological mitigation area — land that was set aside to compensate for the environmental impact of the adjacent Tin Shui Wai new town development. The visitor centre, a large modern building with exhibitions on wetland ecology and biodiversity, provides context before you walk the boardwalks and hides that extend through the wetland. The bird-watching hides, positioned at key points around the reserve, offer close views of migratory and resident birds without disturbance.

Pui Pui, the park's resident saltwater crocodile (captured in 2003 after being spotted in a New Territories river, origin unknown), is the park's celebrity attraction. The park is in Tin Shui Wai, about 45 minutes from Central by MTR, and the journey — through the New Territories' new towns and into the flat, agricultural landscape near the Chinese border — provides a perspective on Hong Kong that the urban core never suggests. The park is an essential corrective to the idea that Hong Kong is nothing but towers and harbour.