Hong Kong Park

 

 

It was when I realised just how many places and photos that I would like to share with you that I decided that News From Italy was just not the right place to do so, especially as with this third post for Travel Tales I am still sharing the same day!  Hong Kong has so much to offer its visitors that I believe I have enough material to last a good while, especially if I revamp some of the posts I wrote on our first trip last year, some of the places we did not return to this time but I would still like to include them here.

To continue the day after visiting Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens and taking a ride on The Peak Tram we visited  another beautiful garden located just across the road from The Peak Tram Station.

Another oasis of calm within the city The Hong Kong Park was built at the cost of  HK$398 million and opened to the public  on 23 May 1991 by Sir David Wilson, the Governor of Hong Kong at that time. In the early colonial days of 1841 part of the area was called Cantonment Hill, where on its upper slopes Victoria Barracks,  was built between 1867 and 1910. The barracks were handed to the government in 1979 and the construction of the park became a joint project by the Urban Council (dissolved in 1999) and the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club (renamed the Hong Kong Jockey Club in 1996).

Covering an area of 8 hectares it is an excellent example of how the old and modern designs can be made to blend in with natural landscape. A few of the former buildings of the barracks have been conserved within the park and have been put to use as a Museum of Teaware, a Visual Arts Centre and a Marriage Registry Office.

One of the main attractions of the park is the Edward Youde Aviary where I took this first group of photos, ideally one should sit there for hours with a tripod to get photos of the birds that fly freely within this area, maybe another time.  This walk-though aviary features a collection of 800 birds of 100 different species, so many more than my photos show!

 

The Aviary in Hong Kong Park

Around the park.

Aquatic Creatures Hong Kong Park

Water features Hong Kong Park.

 

I hope you enjoyed the stroll through the park and that the blog format works ok for you, please let me know if it is causing you problems and if I can make further adjustments I will do so.

If you are interested in finding out more about the park you may want to visit the Hong Kong Park Official Website and more photos can be viewed in my Flickr Album Hong Kong Park where you will also be able to view in a larger format.

All rights reserved by LindyLouMac Photo Collection

With thanks also to  Wikipedia  for the historical information.