The road from Beijing was flat and fairly uninteresting, although just after Bedaihe on the coast there were some low hills. We were the only visitors to the island and we had to cross all the ferries to get to the one nearest the open water. We arrived at the island pier just as the sun was setting - in the distance there were thousands of cormorants going to their evening roosts after feeding out in the bay.
Our main reason for visiting such a swamp muddy island was that the birds like it, and we like the birds. The mud was slippery, sticky and, in places, extremely dangerous. The most deadly patches were marked by unobtrusive little twigs stuck in the mud.
There were some other sights on the island too, like this wrecked boat and these weird attractions for kids. They looked so dangerous. The idea of the first set of swings is to walk from one to the other without falling off and the next one is self explanatory I think, but would YOU let your kids go on that?
There were a lot of insects around - VERY big spiders everywhere, but also some very beautiful butterflies.
