Day 16. Qingdao to Jiaonan
It was going to be a day where the group will split over conflicting agendas. We ride South, Ray and Alex continue South-West.
Today was going to be a bit of a problematic day. The
group was divided as to what course the next leg should take.
Bill & Dave wanted to go south, whereas Ray and Alex wanted to
go back inland. Little Dave had already left that morning for
Shanghai because he had an early flight to catch.
So in reality it was down to me, which way would I go - back
inland to see Confucius' home town, or cycle along the sea and get
in some more miles. I must admit that it was a tough
decision. The idea of seeing Confucius' home town was very
seductive, however, I haven't been doing that much cycling in the
past few months and the idea of a few more miles under the belt was
more appealing, irrespective of the cycling conditions.
[Saying Goodbye to Alex & Ray]
So in the end, we said goodbye to Ray and Alex and boarded a
ferry to get us to the other side of the Qingdao bay towards
Xinjiekou.
[Our ferry ride over to Xinjiekou]
The scenery wasn't all that eventful on the ferry, but I did
manage to spot a cargo ship registered in Valletta - it's always
pleasant to see a reminder of my home placated on the side of a
ship.
[Valletta on the horizon]
We took a few wrong turns and ended up in the middle of a port
city stinking of rotting and salted fish. I can't say those
few kilometres were very pleasant, but when we eventually found the
right way towards Jiaonan the road improved, as did our speed.
Finding a hotel wasn't a problem and after a few minutes of
navigating we were lucky to get a local to offer and lead us
there. In actual fact, we were quite surprised to find such a
nice hotel surrounded by such awful scenery - very industrial and
polluted.
[We can almost see our beds for the night]
If it was cycling we were after, we certainly got that
today. With an early start, we arrived a little after 3pm and
had plenty of time to look around the local shopping complex which
was part of the hotel. The star attraction of the day though,
was the all you could eat buffet which had something for
everyone. For me, that was the vegetarian sushi and plenty of
wasabi :)