Tiger Leaping Gorge

Today we departed Lijiang for a day trip to Tiger Leaping Gorge in light drizzle and a forecast of showers all day. We drove over the mountain range to put us in the valley of the Yangtze River with the clouds lifting. As we followed it downstream toward the gorge, the clouds lifted to almost the top of the huge mountain ranges either side. While following the river I realised that the river was almost at the highest flow for the wet season which should make the rapids spectacular.  We paid our entry fee at the gate and all set of to the car park for the first Rapids which has Tiger Leaping Rock in the centre of the river.

On the way to the first car park the Peugeot and the older Landcruiser got caught up in a rock fall dislodged by all the rain from last night higher up the mountain side. Everyone was very very lucky with the Landcruiser receiving a broken windscreen and the Peugeot coming off the worst with the front left guard torn off and the wheel damaged.(see attached photos). Garry and others set about removing the guard before attacking it with hammers and blocks of wood to beat it back into some resemblance of shape before reattaching it to the car with teck screws and tape. It was a most impressive repair!  On return to Lijiang,  Peter was able to purchase another spare tyre for the rest of the trip.

After the car was fixed we proceeded to continue the Gorge tour with a walk down to beside the river on a long stair case. When we got down to river level the the noise and the power in the Rapids was breathtaking. A couple of us tried to count the stairs on the way up but soon lost count due to puffing. It was at least 400 or  500, and a real struggle due to 2000 metres elevation. We all got back to the top in various states of exhaustion!!!

The blogs may thin out over the next couple of week as we have 15 days on the road to the north and then west to Kashgar. The Internet may also get more troublesome.