Tai Tam Reservoir – drawing

I have been down to Tai Tam Bay a number of times to draw, but this is the first time I’ve been on this side of the reservoir. What a mistake. I should have come here long ago. This is a well maintained trail around the reservoir. It’s paved with asphalt and used to be a road that cuts across the mountain to Tin Hau and up Mt. Parker Observatory and very scenic.

The bridges and dam were built between 1900 and 1907. These bridges are cast concrete with a granite facing. At the moment, the water level is way down as you can see in the photo. Hong Kong basically has two seasons: wet and dry. And this reservoir was built to combat the long droughts that come every winter. However, it is not nearly enough water to supply Hong Kong’s population. Many times since the reservoir’s construction Hong Kong has suffered serious droughts. On average in the early part of the century, water rationing was enforced 300 days a year. Often residents had to carry water by hand from one public water supply that only ran for 4 hours a day. The 1960’s were notorious for dangerous drought conditions, especially 1963-64. Two things happened in 1964 that help to resolve this problem. One is changing flush toilets to sea water. The second was to sign a water treaty with China to pump water in from the Pearl River. And even after the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, Hong Kong still pays billions to China to maintain the flow. Let’s hope China never sees fit to punish Hong Kong or I’ll be missing my favorite noodles. 😉