Hey everyone so today we did a little more exploring around Hong Kong and decided to visit the botanical and zoological gardens on Hong Kong island. Amazingly the gardens have no entry fee and it's completely free to check it all out which is a huge bonus if your traveling on a budget. The main entrance is located about 5 minutes from the lower peak tram station and it's well signposted and easy to find. We walked from central station and it was a bit of an uphill hike for around 15 minutes so we got in a good workout before arriving, plus that area of the city is really nice so it makes for a good walk.
When we eventually made it to the entrance we needed a pit stop in the shade, there are a lot of steps and it's hot here too so bring water if you're walking there.
When you walk up to the entrance the first thing you see is a big memorial arch from the British back in the 1900s, it commemorates the Chinese soldiers that fought with the allies in the first and second war. As you walk through the arch you are pretty much surrounded by tropical plants and trees and a small bamboo forest on your left but unfortunately no Pandas in sight. All the plants and trees are labeled with names, info and where they come from and there is a huge variety of plants from all over the world, all over the entire gardens.
As you walk up further there is a greenhouse with some more tropical plants, I guess the ones from very humid environments but I'm not sure, I missed the David Attenborough series on Plants. The greenhouse is full of nice displays with plants from all over and a lot that I hadn't seen before so the camera was at work.
Like I said I don't know much about plants so I'll have to skip the details and let the pics do the talking but they were very nice to look at. As we made our way further up the path we saw the massive bird enclosures with all kinds of different birds from Chinese pheasant, giant cranes, flamingos, hornbills and many more. There is a great variety of rare species to check out and the enclosures look very good, the whole place is top notch but personally, I'm not a huge fan of birds being kept in cages.
After the birds, we headed up to see the lemur enclosure, it was a little quiet and only a few out relaxing in the sun but they are pretty cool animals, I wanted to start singing the Madagascar song but held back this time.
On to the mammal area which was only a short walk down through the Bird enclosures and through the Time tunnel. In the time tunnel are lots of pictures of the gardens going way back to when the camera was invented by the looks of the photos but I'm not sure on the dates. I know the gardens were founded back in 1864 and it used to be the private gardens of the governor, lucky guy!. Within the monkey area on the upper levels of the park, there are a wide variety of different monkeys, gibbons, lemurs, orangatangs and more. They even have a small reptile area and meercat house, so plenty to see and it's all free. We arrived mid-afternoon and most of the animals were out and fairly active but unfortunately, they had heavy duty cage walls and it was tough getting any good pictures.
We came across an emperor tamarin and this little guy looked just like Chewbacca, he was pretty awesome.
The small reptile area had a few big tortoises and a few younger ones, there was also a small pool for the Terrapins. I'm not sure on the age of the big ones but I think these guys can live for a couple hundred years.
After a quick look through a small exhibit of stuffed rare animals (that died of natural causes I hope), we headed down to the fountain park to chill for a while and watch the world go by. It was a great area to chill and see tourists and locals having picnics, the whole area just has a good vibe and it was a good way to relax after a fair bit of walking.
The animals and plants in this great park are really cool to see and the whole area is very well kept, it really makes for a great day out with friends and family and it's all FREE!!!.
I'm sorry about the lack of details on this blog but it made for a good photo happy day out, well worth a visit if you're in Hong Kong.
I hope you enjoyed this Blog on Hong Kong and if you would like to see more then hit that follow button. I will be doing a whole series of posts over the next couple of months so if there is something you wanna see in Hong Kong just let me know.
