5th May – Shanghai to Qufu (The birthplace of Confucius)

This morning we have approximately 500 km to drive to Qufu the birthplace of Confucius. We drive for about 2 hours on a highway (toll way) and have our morning tea stop, change drivers and get back on the road. Our leader for the day is Vulcan and just after he puts a call out over the CB that we will be stopping for our lunch break in about 40 minutes we come to a Police car parked on the side of the road with it’s lights flashing, the traffic slows and then comes to a complete stop. We turn off our engines and then we notice that the drivers & passengers of the cars around us are getting out of their cars, so we get out and look up ahead on the highway & all we can see is cars & trucks off into the distance. We are stuck on a 2 lane highway in the middle of the country side in a huge traffic jam as the cars behind us also come to a stop.

We are actually stopped on a bridge, there is a river or canal underneath us, which is quite pretty really. All along the highway there have been beautiful trees planted so we are in quite a nice spot. We wander around talking as best we can to other people, the truck drivers, small children etc. none of us can go anywhere and we have no idea why, is it road works or an accident? The cars & trucks coming the other way are not flowing consistently, but rather coming through in bunches, so we suspect that there has been an accident, especially when Police cars & tow trucks go past us in the emergency lane. A few of the locals try to drive up the emergency lane but they soon realise it’s a futile exercise & stop where they can.

So we make the most of the time & get out our chairs & have some lunch, biscuits & peanut butter, green tea, bananas, whatever we can find in our goodies box & basket.

Michael decides to even wash the car!

It’s not until sometime later I realise how close we are to the big trucks & cars that are flying by us going the other way, with just a piece of armco separating us.

Henk tries out one of the trucks for size which amuses all of the Chinese truck drivers. We manage to spill our thermos of hot water, so the truck driver next to us pulls out his large thermos & we fill ours up again so we can have our cup of green tea, which is very kind of him.

The bonnets go up on a couple of the cars and some maintenance is carried out, so everyone is making the most of the time. Fortunately there is a gate in the fence along the side of the road leading to a set of steps that takes you down under the bridge, so having a toilet break is not a problem.

Two of our team members walk along the road in front of us for 20 minutes, and all they can see is a continuous line of parked cars & trucks, so they turn around & come back.

2 hours after we stopped we notice the cars in front starting to move, so we quickly pack up & throw everything back into our cars & take off. We drive for about 15 minutes before we come across the scene of the accident, only 1 truck was still there on the back of a tow truck, but it must have been a huge accident looking at the damage to the armco & the amount of rubbish that was all over the road.

The drive for the rest of the afternoon is through a thick haze, the sun is trying to shine but didn’t succeed. It is quite windy and there are white fluffy seed pods flying around everywhere.