What a day we had today.... but firstly, Happy Birthday Craig!

We all got early today as we had trips planned today, Emma & Jane headed off to visit some pandas and the rest of us headed off to the local bus station to catch a bus to the Huashan Mountains. After catching a bus to the main bus terminal we sat on our bus for about 45 mins waiting for it to fill up before we could leave. About 45 minutes into our journey we hit a major traffic jam so our bus driver took a few alternative routes where we then joined the same traffic jam a few more miles away, where we were directed by the police to turn around. After a lot of loud discussions between all the drivers and the police we turned around and found an alternative route.

The after we turned around and headed off on the new route, Roy went and had a word with the driver to find out what was had happened and the driver told him that the bridge had collapsed and the road was obviously closed. So we carried on with our new journey (in a big coach) through narrow country roads and remote Chinese villages, where at the first reasonably sized village we hit a jam as the road through the village centre was a single track and many people were taking this alternative route. We were stuck here for almost an hour in the middle of the village creating a few strange looks from the locals who noticed the westerners on board. It started to get hot on the bus so Claire and I decided just to jump of the bus to stretch our legs, soon to be joined by Tom. We drew quite a crowd, 3 westerners standing in some remote village.

After many little villages and single track roads that should only have been driven on by a Land Rover and not by a 20 year old coach with knocking suspension we finally made it to our destination after about 7.5 hours and now not having enough time to climb the mountain. We took a group decision to get the cable car up and down to approximately the half way point and then we should have plenty of time to reach the lower of the two summits at 1600 metres (the higher one was at 2100 meters).

As in typical Chinese tourist location style, we had to buy a ticket to get on to the mountain, a ticket to get the bus to the cable car and another ticket to use the cable car. The cable car was high, at around 100 – 200 meters off the ground at points, vertigo was rearing it's little head slightly, I must admit I was glad to get off them and onto safe ground (or so I thought). The mountain track definitely would not pass UK HSE checks. There were definitely points which I was walking along where I didn’t feel too safe, being that high up with nothing but a chain link hand rail at knee height between me and 1000 foot drop. There were some points where you had to climb up steps carved in to the rock face which were at around 80-90 degrees, but as you can see in the picture of the old man coming down, if he can do it then I could, although he did mutter something to us in Chinese which along with his facial expressions we took as "don’t do it!" or something very similar.

At this point Jess decided that she didn’t want to proceed and Claire volunteered to stay behind with her. I think if Claire hadn’t, I might easily have offered as I didn’t feel like going on any further if this is what it was going to be like and it would have been the easy option and it wouldn’t look like I was a little scared, just staying to keep Jess company. As Claire had offered I carried on cautiously.

Roy kept the pace, a very fast pace, and we were almost there at every corner, then there would be another hundred or so steps. Finally we (Roy, Craig, Tom & Sarah and I) made it to the top of the lower summit. There were padlocks with red ribbons symbolising good luck with personal messages engraved on them everywhere and the views were absolutely amazing.

The only problem now was that it was after 5pm, we were at the top of a mountain and we had to get back in to town by 7pm to get the last bus home and who knows how long that would take if we made it. The plan was to get down a quick as possible and if we didn’t make it we would have to stay in town for the night and go back in the morning. We headed back down, meeting up with a very cold Jess and Claire at the cable car station, and made back into town at 19:10 just in time to catch the bus as it was preparing to leave, thank you Mr Taxi driver for blocking the coach in to stop it driving off.

The journey home only took 1 hour 40 mins as we were able to use a new motorway which was completed one way while they were still working on the other side. We were back in the hostel for around 10pm and met up with Emma & Jane who although hadn’t spent the who day on a bus like us, did have a really upsetting experience at the Panda zoo.

I am glad I did keep going up the mountain, although vertigo was still there a little it was an amazing experience and has definitely taken over as the best day so far taking over top position which was the Great Wall walk.

Mum, please don’t look at the photos! You can now as I am back safely.