The Yellow River has never stayed in one place. In 1855 it burst its banks in Henan and abandoned the course it had followed for centuries to reach the sea south of the Shandong peninsula, and instead found a new route north-east into the Bohai Gulf. The mouth of that new course is here, in the northern part of the Yellow River Delta, and it is a place of geological theatre: a young landscape of mudflats and reed beds, growing seaward by some metres a year in good times, a map being redrawn as you watch.
The silt makes the colour. The river gets its name from the fine yellow loess it carries, and where it enters the sea, a plume of ochre spreads across the green-blue water, so that you can see the line between river and sea from the shore. The northern reserve is wilder and emptier than the southern, with tamarisk thickets, tidal creeks, wide marsh and a boardwalk or two. Several million migratory birds pass through the Yellow Sea coast each year, and the delta is one of their main refuelling stations, so in the right season the sky is full.
A visit is about atmosphere. The land is utterly flat and the horizon is far away, with an enormous sky that changes with the weather, and the sound is of reeds, wind and birds. Roads on the embankments are narrow and straight, sometimes unsurfaced, and after rain they turn to mud. A bike with road tyres will struggle on the worst sections, so ask locally before you commit to a track. Mosquitoes are a plague in warm weather, and the winter is cold and windy. Late April to May and September to October are the best times for birds and weather.
The nearest large city is Dongying, a place of oil wells and wide new boulevards, and it has fuel, hotels and restaurants. Local seafood is very good, with crab, shrimp and fish fresh from the Bohai. Foreign riders in China need local permits and often a guide, so check the rules well ahead, and bring a good map, because signage in English is scarce. Water, sun cream and binoculars are the essentials.