10-Jul-2012 -- This is the 3rd out of 20 confluence points that I reached on a bicycle trip to the North-East of China. The narrative of the trip starts from 41°N 117°E.
On the 7th day of the trip, we started in the morning from the village Xīnkāidì (新开地乡), 17 km south-east of the confluence. Since the terrain around the confluence is very rough due to erosion, a direct approach was impossible. Therefore, we first went further south to Shàngtóudì (上头地乡) and then took a direct unsealed road to the confluence.
The public earth road came as close as 1.5 km to the CP and little muddy turnoffs didn’t look promising. So we overshoot a little on the main road and then took a turnoff, thereby passing through two villages, the bigger one is called Xīchǎng (西场村). The village closer to the CP gave us an extremely poor impression.
The exact location of the confluence is on a hill directly above the village. To reach it, we took a short walk around some agricultural fields and found the confluence point exactly between two agricultural fields, one planted with soy beans and the other with wheat.
Right after our visit a thunderstorm came up, threatening to turn the already difficult riding conditions into a mud-fighting challenge. However, the heavy rains came down around us, but we stayed dry. We tried to find a smarter and quicker route back to the main road, but our approach turned out to be much longer and difficult to ride on. However, we made it back to the main road and headed further north.
With this confluence being visited, all confluence points in the (larger) vicinity of Běijīng have now been completed.
CP visit details:
- Distance to a public road: 1500 m (turnoff at 1800 m)
- Distance to a track: 190 m
- Distance to a footpath: 45 m
- Duration of the hike to reach the CP: 10 minutes
- Distance of bicycle parking: 190 m
- Distance to houses: 360 m
- Time at the CP: 11:05 AM
- Measured height: 1374 m
- Minimal distance according to GPS: 0 m
- Position accuracy at the CP: 3 m
- Topography: slightly hilly
- Vegetation: crops: soybeans and wheat
- Weather: hazy, 25° C (felt temperature)
- Given Name: The Adobe House Confluence
Story continues at 44°N 118°E.