HK's Middle Island Beach: Endearing but Entitled

Thursday, May 17, 2012
Central District, China
One of the positives of Julien arriving in Hong Kong a couple of months before our family was that he had the weekends to "scope out" potential places of interest.   One of the “areas of interest” was researching the various recreational clubs.   I must admit, we were initially a bit dewy eyed about this process, thinking we could just sign up somewhere and have it all set up before the family arrived. Those of you who have lived in Hong Kong for more than, say, three weeks are now snickering at our naiveté.  It seems like we will be lucky to make it into a club before we have to move. But, be that as it may, on one of Julien's outings he dropped by the Royal Yacht Club and from them he learned that they had a smaller club on Middle Island. This lead to the discovery that there was also a public beach on Middle Island, which was supposedly nice. So, on one of our first weekends here, we made the trek to check it out.

Getting to Middle Island: Being parents with kids 6 and under, we opted for the easiest transportation…we took a taxi . Luckily the taxi driver knew where to let us off, which is right about number 50/52 Island Road. OK, I just acted like I knew this, when in truth I had to look it up. The taxi driver did all the work on this one.   Oh, and fyi, , it really feels like they are just letting you off in the middle of nowhere.   They let you off at a spot that is situated at the top of Island Road (overlooking the water) just before it meets Repulse Bay Road. Here you will find a steep staircase going down. (WARNING: This is NOT stroller friendly. If you have really little ones or a stroller you will need to get here via Repulse Bay Promenade.)     At the bottom of the stairs was a spot where you can catch a  RHKYC ferry will take you to Middle Island.

All of this was well and good. However, “well and good” deserted us upon leaving said beach. Since we didn’t want to walk up the roughly 4 million stairs back to Island road, we decided to walk over to Repulse Bay and catch a taxi there . This was a beginner mistake! For some reason that only taxi drivers seem to know, we encountered the “gigantic crowd of people with no taxi drivers in sight” syndrome.   This feels a bit illogical to me. I mean, there were lots of taxis driving around with people already in them, wouldn’t one of them radio “head quarters” and say “hey, an unruly mob of sunburned families is about to form at Repulse Bay unless we get some taxi’s down here”.   It’s almost like they enjoy it. Maybe they have some sort of cloaking device that they sadistically deploy if too many people seem to be waiting for a cab. I swear, if the wind is right, you can almost hear them laughing as they drive by unseen. So, after about 30 minutes of waiting with two tired kids, one of them being a 20kg 3 year old asleep in my arms, we decided we would have to try something else before Mommy had to put in an emergency call to her physical therapist. Unfortunately, my incredibly optimistic husband suggested “the bus”. Also unfortunately, we had no real idea what bus to take and so got on one that took us to an area of Central where we walked for 15 minutes before finally hailing a cab .

The Pros: The boat ride to Middle Island is actually an interesting activity for kids in and of itself. It would probably be worth it just to take the boat, hang out on the island for 30 minutes and then come back. (Assuming you call a taxi). The beach and the landscape is fairly pretty. The sand is nice and clean. And, it doesn’t seem to be the sort of place that would draw the masses.

The Cons: It is very small, unless I missed part of it…which is possible. This means it is not too exciting for the kids after about an hour, unless they are doing something you don’t want them to do. To that point, there are quite a few piles of sharp rocks around. So if your children seem set on self inflicted injury, as mine often do, this will be an attractive nuisance for you. There are also no kiosks for refreshments or sundries, at least not that I could see. Perhaps that is not a problem if you belong to one of the clubs there, but if you don’t you must remember to bring everything and the kitchen sink.

Learnings: So, my big learning from this adventure was CALL A TAXI BEFORE LEAVING THE BEACH.   And stick to your guns on it when your spouse suggests just trotting up the road to find one. This never seems to work out well. And doing something for the “adventure” of it is fine, if you are not carrying a 3 year old.   In fact, I would advise calling roughly 15 minutes before you plan to leave. This way you have the time to actually get through to someone, have her say “no taxi ..call back” and hang up on you, and then call again multiple times until luck is on your side or you just wear them down.   So far, this has worked pretty well for me, but what can I say, I’m not afraid to be obnoxious

Additional Comments: I should put in a caveat here. Both times we have gone to this little beach, it seemed to be populated by an “entitlement” crowd. You know, the sort that think the world should always revolve around them. For example, one of the times we went, there was a woman there with her dog. OK, dog on a beach… I don’t really like it but it’s to be expected.   Dog on a really small beach….a bit more of a problem but still within acceptable tolerance limits.   Annoying dog, not on a leash, who is tormenting all the children is, by no means, EVER acceptable.   The woman in question just watched on while her “should-be-served-as-an-entre” terrier chased this little girl around, who was screaming in terror. The father of the little girl finally went over and started a heated discussion with the dog owner. Her response was “he’s just really friendly”.   This same “friendly” dog then chased our six year old and knocked him over…right on to a toddler. My husband then went over and told her that she needed to control her dog. To which she responded “but kids love dogs”.   Oh, to be allowed to have curare tipped darts in such moments. Dead dog. Dead woman. Not sure which is better. Both seem to have their merits.     We left soon after this incident at Julien’s suggestion. I suspect he realized that I was on the verge of getting “involved”, which is rarely a good thing, as you can probably tell from the sentence above.

Ratings

Ease of Travel To and From Beach: **

Beauty / Cleanliness of Beach and Environment:***

Availability of Food / Sundries: *

Infant / Stroller Friendliness: NOT

Lack of Lemming Like Hoards:****

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