| When
you have been out walking or running in Hong Kong's rural areas
and country parks, you will probably have found yourself on a path
made out of boulders laid closely together without any cement or
concrete. These are what remain of a network of ancient roads and
paths and their associated bridges linking the major townships and
villages with each other and inter-linking ferry routes.
They are difficult to date but are probably centuries old and have
survived because they were so sensibly and practically constructed.
The Hong Kong Archaeological Society Survey of 1982 to 1985 identified
nine boulder trackways in particular:
Three of these are to be found, at least in part, within the boundaries
of Sai Kung District:
Ho Chung to Customs Pass Trackway (2Km)
Pak Kong to Mui Tsz Lam Trackway (1.5Km)
Shui Ngau Shan Trackway (1Km)
Photo
Gallery
|
|
 |
The
network of traditional paved roads provides important evidence as
to how and by what routes Hong Kong's early villages and market
towns were interconnected before the development of the modern road
and rail system.
They offer a unique insight into a traditional world, whose patterns
of communication, following the easiest natural routes, were quite
different to what they are today.
The scale
of this system of paved trackways, the skill with which the tracks
were constructed and the effort needed in the quarrying and transporting
of material and in their maintenance, provide eloquent testimony
to the socio-economic and administrative institutions of the times.
No firm evidence to date these tracks has been located, but some
may conceivably be of very considerable antiquity.
Their significance is greatly enhanced because they are eminently
visible and readily appreciated monuments to the Territory's past
in a landscape relatively impoverished of similar historical features.
|
