Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site and Mount Sanqingshan National Park

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site

   The word kaolin comes from Gaoling, a village in the hills north-east of Jingdezhen, in Jiangxi province, where the white clay used in making porcelain was mined for centuries. Porcelain needed two ingredients: kaolin and porcelain stone, a rock that, when crushed and refined, gave the paste its translucency. The hills around Jingdezhen were full of both, and the Changling porcelain stone mining site is one of the places where the stone was quarried, crushed by water-powered hammers and refined into bricks that were carried to the kilns of the porcelain capital of the world.

   Read the complete Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site is where the day begins. Next is Hutian Ancient Kiln Site.

2. 2. Hutian Ancient Kiln Site

   Jingdezhen has been making porcelain for more than a thousand years, and the Hutian kiln site is one of the places where that story began to turn into an industry. The kilns here produced fine white and bluish-white ware in the Song and Yuan dynasties, and the heaps of broken shards and the remains of long dragon-shaped kilns show how potters adapted slopes of land to fire great quantities of pots at once. Later, in the Ming dynasty, imperial kilns were established in the town itself, and Jingdezhen became the porcelain capital of China, supplying emperors and, via the sea trade, markets from Japan to Europe.

   Read the complete Hutian Ancient Kiln Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Hutian Ancient Kiln Site comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mount Sanqingshan National Park.

3. 3. Mount Sanqingshan National Park

   Sanqingshan is a mountain where granite has been carved into figures. Tall pillars and spires of grey rock rise out of a sea of cloud, shaped by wind and water into forms that Chinese visitors have named for centuries: the Goddess, a pillar that looks like a woman with a tall coiffure, the Python, a slender tower that leans out over the valley. The peaks reach to about 1,800 metres, the highest, Yujingfeng, just under 1,820, and the mist that gathers in the valleys turns the whole range into a landscape out of a classical painting.

   Read the complete Mount Sanqingshan National Park write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 191 km into the recorded legs you reach Mount Sanqingshan National Park. Next is back through Hutian Ancient Kiln Site.

4. 4. back through Hutian Ancient Kiln Site

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Hutian Ancient Kiln Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Hutian Ancient Kiln Site, late in the day. Next is Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site.

5. 5. Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Changling Porcelain Stone Mining Site. That is the ride.