Live cameras in Tai Po, Hong Kong

Tai Po is an old market town turned new town at the head of Tolo Harbour, where the Lam Tsuen River reaches the sea in the northeastern New Territories of Hong Kong. Stone tools and pottery found at Yuen Chau Tsai show people living here in Neolithic times, and for centuries Tai Po was a busy rural market for the surrounding villages. It was chosen as a new town site in the late 1970s, and public estates soon rose on reclaimed land along the waterfront. The old Tai Po Market railway station, built in 1913 in a Chinese style with a decorated pitched roof, has been the free Hong Kong Railway Museum since 1985, with historic locomotives and coaches on display.

Up the Lam Tsuen valley, the Lam Tsuen Wishing Trees stand beside a Tin Hau temple at Fong Ma Po. People once tossed wishes tied to oranges into the banyan branches until a branch broke in 2005; offerings now go on wooden racks. The site is busiest at Lunar New Year, when the well-wishing festival brings big crowds and extra traffic.

The cameras

The cameras whose main place is Tai Po are still images from Hong Kong's Transport Department, published on DATA.GOV.HK. They are small snapshots that refresh about every two minutes, aimed at main roads, flyovers and junctions. Around Tai Po, look for the Tolo Highway, which skirts Tolo Harbour from Sha Tin and passes Tai Po on its way north, along with Tai Po Road and Ting Kok Road toward Plover Cove.

Hong Kong Time is eight hours ahead of UTC with no daylight saving. In June daylight runs from about twenty to six in the morning until after seven in the evening, and in December from about seven until a quarter to six. Weekday rush hours fill the highway toward Sha Tin and Kowloon, and typhoons can arrive between May and November, when the views show wind-driven rain and emptier roads.

Nearby, Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve offers forest trails on the hills to the south, and the Plover Cove reservoir lies east along Ting Kok Road.

Sources: Tai Po - Wikipedia · Lam Tsuen wishing trees - Wikipedia · Tolo Highway - Wikipedia · Traffic Snapshot Images, Transport Department (DATA.GOV.HK).