Mere minutes from one of the busiest urban centres in the world is a peaceful wilderness cloaked in forest, where azalea and rose myrtle cover the hillsides and moths, ants and spiders grow to several times their ordinary size. This is where you’ll join the Dragon’s Back Trail, which snakes for 8.5 km along Hong Kong Island’s ridgeline, seeming almost to brush the tops of the skyscrapers as it passes through bamboo groves and woodland full of birdsong. If you’re lucky enough to get a clear day, the views of the city jutting up between jewel-like islands and turquoise seas is surreal and completely stunning. Finish with a dip in the sea and some super-fresh seafood in the village of Shek O.

Radiating outwards from Kowloon, the New Territories are about as far from the stereotypical image of Hong Kong as it’s possible to get. Hop on a bicycle for a private tour of the region, through wetlands teeming with wildlife, villages splashed with murals and green fields shaded by massive trees. One highlight of the day is a visit to an old walled village, built to defend against pirates in the 17th century; another is a delicious dim sum lunch in the market town of Yuen Long. If you have any energy left on your return to the city, reward yourself with a cocktail at the top of one of Kowloon’s famous skybars, the lights of Hong Kong’s iconic skyline twinkling below you.