June 26th, 2008 | categorizilation: all categories,China
Today’s distance / ???????: 42.3 miles / 48.1km
Average speed / ????: 10mph / 16km/h
Time on skateboard / ????: 4h 15m
Total skateboarding distance to date / ????????????: 5179mi plus 377mi (?) / 8335km plus 606km (?)
Ascent / ??: 365m
Descent / ??: 85m
End-of-day GPS coordinates: N39° 57′ 43.60″, E097° 39′ 00.50″
Well the day off in Rumen seemed to help a little, and I was happy to be on the road again. I was once again on the expressway for the whole day, but stopped just outside of Rumen City to snap these wonderful tiles on a wall.
Augmented by green fields, it was a very pleasant start to the day.
The green continued for only a few kms past the city. Arid land ensued all the way to Qingquan.
Heather Burge, a cyclist who had cycled this route warned me that on the expressway there were the occassional sign promising services such as restaurants and cafes, but she found that none of the promised services were yet in existance. That was just under a year ago, and now, I found lots of shiny new service areas with stores, restaurants, and even accommodation. Looks like things move fast in China!
I stopped at Qingquan and checked into a cheap 10RMB inn for the night. Once again I was missing my earplugs, with a noisy market street behind the inn creating a racket until 11pm.
The tiles remind me of painted murals on shop walls in Sheffield, a small country town in Tasmania.
Have you been able to get good food at these new stores and restaurants?
