A Million Reasons to Love Hong Kong
The city’s best outdoor adventures, according to Ingrid Chen Mandonnaud and Thierry Mandonnaud
When Covid-19 scuppered Ingrid Chen Mandonnaud and Thierry Mandonnaud’s plans to move abroad, they saw an opportunity to look at their home from a new perspective.
“I grew up in Hong Kong but had never been to Clearwater Bay in my life,” Chen Mandonnaud confesses. “But you can get from Central to the beach and mountains in 20 minutes,” says Mandonnaud. “That proximity is actually unique and special.”
Thrill-seekers and adrenaline junkies, the couple have made Hong Kong’s outer reaches their own personal outdoor playground in the past year, filling their weekends with everything from rock climbing to wakesurfing. “It was never about an escape from the city, it was about discovering a whole new side of something I found too familiar,” says Chen Mandonnaud.
Eager to embrace the new normal, the pair make a point of testing their limits. “A sunrise hike at High Junk Peak is where we go to push ourselves. It’s hard, but nothing worth doing is easy,” says Mandonnaud. True to form, he often makes his way down the trail by mountain bike, “leaving all the fatigue from daily life behind as you race through the forest trail”.
But, as Chen Mandonnaud says, “An adventure is truly enjoyed when shared with the ones you love.” They introduced their enjoyment of the great outdoors to their daughters from an early age. Taking them horse riding, visiting organic farms and exploring the city’s less-trodden paths, “We try to make them curious about the environment and nature, pushing them out of their comfort zones,” says Mandonnaud.
Their willingness to go with the flow has paid dividends, the couple agrees. Through their shared love of nature and passion for adrenalinefuelled adventures, they say, “We have rediscovered our Hong Kong.”