Hongkong 11.5 Milestone, Tai Po Road - Then and Now History
As a quick follow up to my earlier post about walking along part of the old Tai Po Road, I thought it would be nice to sing some praise for the Govt for a change.
I've only been in HK a few years (although I am now an official Permanent Resident :-) ), and it didn't take me long to get very jaded with regards to the Govt's complete lack of initiative and willing about conserving things of antiquity and historical note. The previous version of this blog was littered with many examples of buildings and structures of note that have been left to decay or just demolished to make way for another generic piece of blocky real estate.
The 11.5 milestone on Tai Po Road is located just past the Chinese University of Hong Kong as the road bends around towards Ko Tao Shan, and last year when I saw workman from the Highway's Dept setting up a cordon along the road here, I didn't hold out much hope for the continuing survival of one of HK's few remaining milestone markers.
So imagine my surprise when the workman eventually packed up (after about 6 months) but I noticed that not only had the milestone been left in-situ, it had also been given a little bit of TLC. I originally did the aforementioned walk in the late autumn of 2012, and just recently had the chanc to head back to the milestone and see what it now looks like. Here are the 2012 pictures.
I'm sure some people are just thinking, so what, it's just a bit of rock, right? Well, yeah, but its been in that spot for many many years and despite there being many more originally, most have gone over time and only a few remain. Well worth preserving in my humble opinion.
Anyway, below are some quick snaps I took just this week (June 2014), and as you can see the stone is undamaged and has in fact been given a lick of paint to bring out the numbers etched into the side.
So, I think a big round of applause is in order for the Highways Department for actually taking the time and effort to 1. preserve it and 2. give it a bit of a touch up (that is in the non-Rolf Harris manner). Hooray!!
