Gaoyou is a small canal city in central Jiangsu, set between two big lakes, and it has been a staging post on the Grand Canal for over two thousand years. The Gaoyou and Shaobo lakes lie on either side of the waterway, and the old canal embankment runs between them, a long ridge of earth and stone that carried the boats north and south. At this point the Huaiyang section meets the Yangzhou stretch, the part of the canal that ran from the Yangtze north to the Huai river, and it was one of the busiest stretches of the whole system.
The town has its own reputation. Gaoyou is known across China for its salted duck eggs, pickled in brine until the yolk turns into a bright red-orange, oily paste, and a Gaoyou egg is a proud product, served at breakfast with rice porridge. The poet Qin Guan, a Song dynasty writer known for his delicate love poems, was born here, and the town honours him with a memorial. Old streets near the canal keep some of the atmosphere of the past, with tiled roofs and narrow alleys.
The landscape is wet and flat, a country of water. Fields of rice and rapeseed run to the edge of the dykes, carp ponds and lotus pools lie between the villages, and the lakes are full of birds, including egrets, herons and ducks. In spring, the rapeseed blooms in yellow sheets, and in autumn the reeds turn silver. The sky is often soft and hazy, and summers are hot and humid, with typhoon rains in late summer.
The riding is flat, with long straight roads and little change in direction, and surfaces can be rough on village lanes. Visitors who want to ride in China should check the rules on licences and temporary registration well in advance, since requirements are strict and change. Gaoyou has fuel stations, shops and restaurants, and the larger city of Yangzhou, with its gardens and canal views, lies to the south. Spring and autumn are the best seasons, and the best food is local: freshwater fish, steamed buns and the famous eggs.