Cherry Lake Bicycle Loop, Rongcheng, Shandong Province, PRC
Trail photos
Author
Trail stats
- Distance
- 6.98 mi
- Elevation gain
- 3 ft
- Technical difficulty
- Moderate
- Elevation loss
- 3 ft
- Max elevation
- 23 ft
- TrailRank
- 61
- Min elevation
- 0 ft
- Trail type
- Loop
- Moving time
- 59 minutes
- Time
- one hour 21 minutes
- Coordinates
- 1624
- Uploaded
- February 15, 2019
- Recorded
- February 2019
near Daonanjiangjiacun, Shandong (China)
Viewed 1257 times, downloaded 10 times
Trail photos
Itinerary description
This track starts at the bike station behind the Kowloon Swan Hotel. There is also a new 3-level shopping complex here, and a tall circular stainless steel ring artwork visible for many kilometres. There is a seafood restaurant on the lake ~200 meters to the east, where speciality dishes can be served to table by robots.
The Rongcheng bicycle fleet are sturdy one-speeds with adjustable seat height, sufficient for this distance, but heavy and slow against a headwind. This invites a "Moderate Difficulty" rating despite the flat terrain and relatively short distance. The bikes are released using a common Chinese cellphone application (this only works if the App Registration is linked to a Chinese ID, so a local contact may be necessary for foreign visitors).
Older maps, including Wikiloc's free Shandong Province offline map, show undeveloped land here. Now the "lake" and shoreline development is finished and major residential building efforts are proceeding in several locations around the lake (February 2019).
All is man-made; the "lake", shoreline and landscaping. This may not be "pure nature", but is iconic of interactions between humankind and the natural environment in China. Now there are very significant swan, duck, coot, and seabird activities so Cherry Lake has apparently been accepted into natural migration flyways. Actually its not really a "lake" perhaps its an "artificial tidal lagoon" because it has a ocean connection at the south end, where significant inflow of seawater was observed on the day.
Waypoints
Information point
129 ft
Bicycle Station
This convenient bicycle release station is on the lake shore, beside the big stainless steel ring art, behind the Kowloon Swan Hotel. There is a large parking area at the adjacent mall.
Provisioning
0 ft
Seafood Restaturaunt
This lakefront seafood restaturaunt is an annex of the Kowloon Swan hotel, located several hundred meters west of Hotel along the lakeshore. It gets special mention because robots can deliver specialty dishes to your table, and its modern decor. There are also private banquet rooms on the 2'nd floor.
Beach
11 ft
At the Yellow Sea
A side trip along a car-free avenue leads to an ocean bicycle path (part of the Rongcheng Green-way) along the shore of the Yellow Sea. This track explores a segment of the Seafront Green-way to the north. The Green-way also extends south along the seafront for a considerable distance, and can be seen as a red string on the default satellite map. There appear to be additional interesting features to explore towards the south.
Beach
12 ft
Seafront Bicycle Path
Bronze artworks along here show traditional seaweed gathering and other activity. Lots of winter bird spotting.
Car park
15 ft
Car park and beach access
This track was made during the 2019 Spring Festival, at the start of the "Year of the Pig". Festive red lanterns and other night illuminations are everywhere.
Car park
19 ft
North terminus of the Rongcheng Greenway
Bicycle path ends here, at another car park with beach access. Be careful, especially with kids, of going off the bike path in this area, the small steps are hard to see on the extensive paved patio near the seashore.
Lake
9 ft
'Sakura Lake'
"Sakura" is the Japanese word for Cherry, here paired with the English word "Lake". There is a lot of Japanese business and cultural exchange with Shandong, as there has been since ancient times.
River
0 ft
Bridge at South end of Lake
Ocean inflow was observed here on the day, so the "lake" must be saline and tidal. This curved bridge infrastructure suggests a very large investment in this park and recreation project.
Lake
0 ft
Along the West shore of Cherry Lake
Significant swan, duck, coot, and seabird activity along this shore of the lake.
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