Friday, January 15, 2016

Biking Cheung Chau

Walking Cheung Chau Island is quite a fun activity, but when you want to get all the way from the ferry pier over to the Reclining Rock or the Cheung Po Tsai Cave…walking will take up most of the day's adventures.  

I suggest going to one of the bike rental places and picking up a bike for a few hours.  You have to pedal slowly and maneuver pretty carefully around the main street area because there are always a lot of people around, but when you get a bit towards the outskirts and into the residential areas, you can bike more freely.  

The bike rental place that we've been to the most often is located nearer to the Pak Tai Temple area of Cheung Chau.  It's located on Pak She Praya Road, right at the corner of the Pak Tai Temple's basketball court area…

Mountain bikes are available to rent…

There are also bikes with training wheels that you can attach…

You can select bikes with fenders, baskets, etc…there is a good variety amongst the little group of bikes that are rentable at this little shop.

We mostly rent here because the owners are always really nice…but, most of the shop owners on Cheung Chau are incredibly nice!!  But, we just tried this place a few years ago and stuck to it...


As well as little tuk tuks.  But, these are considered illegal to ride if someone is riding in the back seat.  If a police officer catches you, you'll be fined.  So, most of the bike rental vendors tell you that you can ride the bike, just not with someone on the back seat.  Though…I've seen many a people sitting in the back seat of these tuk tuks!





For the bikes, it costed us either 10 HKD, 20 HKD or 30 HKD per hour…depending on the type of bike.  We got one mountain bike, one smaller wheeled bike and one tuk tuk. The shop owners will tell you how much each bike costs to rent for an hour.

We told her that we'd probably rent the bike for three hours…I'm not sure if this is the policy, but the first hour was free for all of us.  So, we paid for two hours each.  It seemed like such a great deal!

The woman helping us also logged our info into her book before she gave us bike locks and we rode off.


The thrice times that we've rented bikes here have all been a quick and smooth process.  There has always been bikes available as well.  And the entire process is so casual.  I really like this bike rental shop.


We've biked around most of the island by now, but today we were exclusively going down to the Reclining Rock and Cheung Po Tsai Cave.  I thought it might be nice to show you what the main street and ride down to that area looked like.

This is basically what Cheung Chau's main shopping and eating area along the waterfront looks like on a winter's day!

***Scenes along the main waterfront street of Cheung Chau.  We rode from the bike rental place to the Reclining Rock and Cheung Po Tsai Cave hiking area.***



There are a few bike rental shops along the main road…



While one side of the main street has shops and restaurants, the other side has a lovely view of the water…filled with docked boats…




Along the main street, there are a plethora of shops that sell some pretty awesome souvenirs…





Near the ferry piers…there are the usual name brand shops and restaurants…


Near the ferry pier there are a handful of kiosks which offer vacancies for room rentals…


After riding past the wet market, we came to a docking/loading area…and this was nearer to the outskirts/residential areas of the waterfront area…





From this sitting out area on, the roads were pretty much ruled by cyclists.  And it was only a 5 minute bike ride more to the hiking and outdoor viewing areas of the island…which will be in my next blog post!