Friday 12th September - day 23
Zhangjiajie
We arrive at the station at 8am ish and take a bus from over the road, to the little town our hostel is in. We're not staying in zhangjiajie city but rather just outside the national park. The bus takes about 30mins and costs 12rmb each. Once were in the town we get a taxi for 15rmb which takes 5mins. There was a bus but we are unsure which way we should be heading towards and which stop to get off at for the hostel. We arrive at
Hostel, check in, have a shower, buy a map and with the help of victor the guy who works in the hostel - head straight out to zhangjiajie park. We take the number 2 bus from from right outside our hostel (you can wave and flag it down anywhere - there's no bus stops). And take the short 5-10min journey to the entrance of the park. We get some dumpling soup outside before we go in. Entrance fee is 245rmb but that's a 3 day pass. The park and area is also known as wulingyuan - 243square miles of karst landscape and Mountains. The mountains are are more like pinnacles which rise from a dense subtropical forest. it's where the the idea for avatar is from, and where lots of the filming took place. There's huge aqua dragon flies and bright yellow butterflies along with some of the biggest bugs I've ever seen. We begin the 1.5hr trek up stairs to the main viewpoint. There's a tribe of fierce looking rhesus monkeys on the way up too. The park is usually clogged in fog but today is clear and bright, but ridiculously humid. It's a good day for viewing the mountains, not so good for this upward mountain treck! We pass various streams and green pools before we start the steep ascent. We get to the top for the money shots of 'heaven pillar, greatest natural bridge and lofty cliff' - And it's still relatively quiet tourist wise too. The paths twist round the peaks of the mountains for various good viewing spots.
We catch the free buses around the park and head towards tianzi shan - the north section of the park where the forest is covered in fine, splinter like tors and view the 'heavenly platform' and 'inperila writing brush peaks'. It's much busier here and it's getting late so we decide to head back down the mountain after a hour or so. The the fog is also starting to come down and we don't fancy the 3 hour treck back down in the dark and fog. Conveniently for the parks finances, there are no buses that take you down to the exit from here, forcing you to cough up a further 75rmb for a lift (an actual 300ft elevator) down. Once at the bottom of this, the fog has set in and the Mountains look really erie. We take another bus to the exit and walk back to the hostel grabbing some expensive dinner on the way home.