Sha Lo Tung: Back to Nature?

You'd think that a place with a tofu fa stall
(albeit one that's only open on weekends)
would be buzzing with life...

But, really, much of Sha Lo Tung is not only
abandoned but now also very overgrown

Two springs ago, two friends and I went on a hike that took us to Sha Lo Tung, a largely abandoned village nestled in a valley bordered by Cloudy Hill to the west, the Pat Sin Leng mountain range to the east and Hok Tau Reservoir to the north. Because it was late in the afternoon when we got there and we didn't want to end up hiking in the dark, we didn't spend as much time exploring the scenic area as we would have liked to. So I resolved to go back again some day.

A few days ago, I fulfilled my wish to go back -- this time with a different friend along for the hike. As we neared Sha Lo Tung, I got to noticing that the path there from Hok Tau Reservoir was way more overgrown than the last time I was on it but was not unduly bothered by that -- and, in fact, thought that this state of affairs made things even more scenic than previously. In addition, the preponderance of natural growth (in what used to be farm land) looked to have attracted a large number of dragonflies and butterflies -- since we could see a number of them flitting about and flying overhead as we made our way into the center of the village area.

However, the nearer we got to the center of Sha Lo Tung, the more we discovered that ants happened to have been another species of insects whose population had sizeably increased -- and that they seemed uncommonly attracted to my friend (who, not incidentally, had not sprayed any insect repellant onto her feet, legs and other extremities before the hike). And even though I had put on quite a bit of bug spray on me, it still was hard to ignore the large numbers of ants crawling about the place -- and that seemed to like to congregate in areas where I would have liked to have been left unbothered to leisurely compose and take my photos.

But although my camera may not have recorded it as well as I would have liked, my eyes definitely observed that buildings that less than a year and half ago I could get near and peer into now were so surrounded and covered by vegetation that I couldn't easily get to them any more. Indeed, even the temple that looked to have still been looked after in the village now looked to have been abandoned like much of the rest of the place.

All of which left me wondering: has Sha Lo Tung been reclaimed by nature or is this a seasonal differentiation that I'm noticing? Alternatively put: does or will winter wither the overgrowth or is it the case that in a few more years, if not more months, there will be still less visible trace of it having been the case not so long ago that this was a part of Hong Kong where families actually used to have their homes?