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We continued our travels in China and headed to the next climbing area we chose to visit: 江油腰悬岩 (Jiangyou Yaoxuanyan), located northeast of Chengdu.

On the way, Rosinante achieved one of her all-time fuel consumption records: with her 80-liter tank, she made it 813 kilometers, that’s 9.8 liters per 100 kilometers! Not bad for a fat-ass car like her.

All thanks to the flawless Chinese expressways.

Along our route, we found an okay camp spot in an abandoned tourist area. It was strange: the site was huge, complete with an artificial lake, walking paths, shops, apartments, hotels, everything. Yet, all the buildings were completely empty and unused commercially. Local residents came there to chill and a few small vendors and food carts were selling things, but otherwise (aside from one active hotel), the area was abandoned.

On the way, we picked up some supplies: cheap Baileys for Racki and a mixture of cognac and Chinese herbs (we called it Chinese medicine) for me.

Nope, we didn’t take the whole cucumber.

Eventually, we arrived at the climbing area. The road leading there was super narrow, winding through deeply forested hills. It was a nice concrete road, as always in China, with no major damage.

When we reached the gate to the climbing area, a lot of signs greeted us.

Because the few roads in that region were so narrow and at times very steep, it took us a while to find a good camp spot. In fact, both we and the locals had to get a running start in our cars just to make it up some of the steeper sections. Thankfully, there was almost no traffic.

We were extremely happy with our spot, as it provided plenty of shade in the heat.

The climbing crags looked amazing!

There were a couple of sectors, and the quality of the routes was very good.

The weather was great, but it was too hot in the sun, so we timed our climbing sessions according to the sun’s position so we could mostly climb in the shade.

Some sectors required a fairly steep approach through the forest.

We had a blast finally climbing in a larger area again, and we were getting fitter and fitter.

See details about 江油腰悬岩 on thecrag.com.

During our stay, we watched the Leonids, and the night sky and stars at this place were absolutely stunning!

We had to pay the locals for our parking spot, but they were super friendly and…

… let us use their toilet, which was the hole you see at the top left of this photo, located inside their pigsty.

And of course, we enjoyed plenty of amazing food. This was our signature homemade pesto, packed with lots of fresh herbs and nuts.

We moved on to our next major sightseeing spot: The Great Wall of China! Since we didn’t want to make the detour to Beijing, we went to Xinzhou instead, which was right on our route. The first attraction was quite impressive… let’s just say tastes are individual.

After the massive stone structure, we caught this interesting little theatrical performance.

At first, we weren’t particularly impressed with our visit to the Great Wall because we couldn’t really see it—it was completely swallowed in fog.

Gradually, however, the fog began to recede.

And we really enjoyed walking along this restored section of the wall, talking about what life must have been like back then, marveling at how long the wall actually is, and reading up on its history. It’s a mind-blowing story.

The restoration work seems like a never-ending process.

We also took a short hike along the historic and restored merchants’ trail.

We made it to the other side of the scenic area, believing that a shuttle bus would take us back to our parking area as usual. But a very friendly local explained that there was no bus running there. So, we hiked all the way back to Rosinante.

On the way to our next destination, we tested what it’s like to spend a night at one of the expressway truck stops. It’s definitely not recommended with a pop-up camper!

A urinal that tests your urine automatically.

Century eggs in the supermarket.

A century egg out of its shell. I didn’t think the taste was too bad, but I certainly didn’t become a fan. Racki refused to try it.

We continued into the Wanxian Mountains for our first rock climbing session in China! As always, the Chinese expressways were stunning engineering feats—built seamlessly around and through the mountains.

And the rock formations looked incredible!

When we reached the climbing sector, I was a bit disappointed: we couldn’t park Rosinante near the crag and had to stay at a large, albeit beautiful, parking lot instead.

To actually reach the climbing area, we had to pay an entrance fee for the national park plus a shuttle bus ticket to get inside.

There were many Chinese visitors at the national park and parking area, and quite a few were very curious about us, asking where we were from and what we were up to.

We did our best to communicate using Google Translate, which worked remarkably well. We had heard from other travelers that locals in China might not respect personal privacy at all, but that wasn’t our experience at all. Everyone was extremely friendly, respectful, curious, and welcoming.

Right next to the parking lot was a small pond with a bit of trash floating in it. The locals didn’t seem to mind, bringing their fishing gear to enjoy a good time fishing, practicing Tai Chi, and playing bamboo flutes.

We paid the entrance and bus fees and headed into the national park.

The cliffs were absolutely spectacular!

Small roads wound their way through the national park.

There were plenty of attractions along the way, such as these massive, highly artificial, but extremely safe-looking water slides.

After some searching, we finally located our first Chinese climbing crag!

Climbing! We enjoyed it a lot. See details about the Wanxian Mountains climbing area on thecrag.com.

Yet, it felt both strange and a bit disappointing. The area seemed to have been very popular in the past, but didn’t look frequently climbed anymore. We did several routes in the sector we found, but discovered two other sectors were completely inaccessible due to landslides. On the approach to the last sector we wanted to try, we decided to turn around because it was getting late and we didn’t have a machete to clear the overgrown path.

Still, we thoroughly enjoyed the climbing and wore our custom-printed t-shirts: Climber’s Life for Racki, and From Another Point of View for me.

After a day of climbing, we left the parking lot and headed south to try the next climbing spot. Along the way, it was time to give Rosinante an engine oil change. Other overlanders had warned us that certain maintenance tasks can be tricky in China because mechanics aren’t accustomed to diesel passenger vehicles—they know diesel trucks well, but diesel cars, not so much. At the first shop, the staff were visibly relieved when we left after they did not manage to find an appropriate oil for Rosinante in their software database (even though we tried pointing out that one of their oils met our specs).

The second garage didn’t rely on software to select oil, but only stocked unknown local brands.

The third garage, however, had a good oil. It was a lovely, family-run shop, and we had a great time with them.

We also inspected one of ours tyres because it had gone flat after parking Rosinante at the national park for a few days. Fortunately, the tyre checked out completely fine, no punctures or holes found…