Red Bridge Park

---

The Red Bridge Path is in Guangming and it took me about thirty minutes to walk there from the subway station (Fenghuang Town). The walk was fine. The area was quiet and new. I walked past another park to get there, I wish I’d had more time to have a look around there too. I could see the red bridge from the main road. I headed into the park. The first part was all concrete with a few trees evenly planted about. Since it was the weekend there were plenty of kids and families about. Just beyond that there was a service centre under the bridge and some steps leading up. From where I was standing, it looked like you couldn’t access the bridge from here (I later saw this was wrong), so I headed over to the steps by the road. I passed a cute rabbit statue. I like these reminders of the lunar year. There were also some information boards about the route of the bridge through the park. Everything was in Chinese, but the map was easy to follow.

I headed up the steps and started my walk along the red bridge path. The views were quite nice. I could see flashes of the red bridge in the greenery stretching before me. The first part of the bridge path was a bit boring as the park underneath was rather manicured lots of concrete with trees planted at even spaces. While it was nice, it kind of lacked any personality and I hoped it wasn’t like this the whole way. There was a nice offshoot of the bridge path, which was a spiral staircase with a large tree in its centre. It was great to stand above it and take photos of people as they walked down. The bridge continued for another couple of hundred metres or so and then petered out. It was replaced by just a coloured section of the path. I hoped that this was only temporary as it was a bit of a cop out. I came to an information board which had some details about the park but it wasn’t anything of interest.

I followed the path under a bridge and when I came out the other side I could see more of the Red Bridge ahead. I was glad that the path would be elevated once again. I walked past a small lake/reservoir to rejoin the bridge path. It was great to be up high again as I preferred the views from higher up. I could also see a couple of observation towers along the path too. Looking back from where I come, I watched a couple of high speed trains go over the bridge I had walked under. I tried to get some photos of them but I am not good at getting the timing right. I don’t know if the trains were coming to and/or from Guangming train station (which is fairly close by) or the main station Shenzhen North (which is a bit further away). Looking ahead I really liked how the bridge curved. The curves combined with the rise and fall of the bridge just made it look prettier. I had seen a couple of signs and from what I could understand the bridge path was about 4 kilometres in length. I think this was just this section and adding on the first part I done, I think it was maybe around 6 kilometres in total. I could have made that up, but I feel like it rings a bell somewhere in my mind. It was a hot day and I was surprised when I checked the temperature on my phone that it was 29 degrees Celsius. While I was hot, the overcast skies was actually making it bearable. No doubt I would have been feeling it a lot more if the sun had been beating down on me.

Up ahead of me on the bridge was a young woman dressed in Hanfu (traditional Chinese clothing). She looked great in her red outfit that matched the bridge. While walking along the bridge I passed a couple of graves/burial mounds. I don’t know if they were really old or more recent, but I wondered what the occupants thought about the development in Shenzhen and if they liked the bridge and the park. Another really random sight that I saw while walking on the bridge was a woman taking her parrot for a walk. It was just perched on her shoulder with a lead around its leg as they walked along. It really made me chuckle. I also liked looking at the city’s skyscrapers in the distance. As I walked on, I passed a golf course underneath the bridge. When I had been looking at the map at the start of the trail, I had seen that there were a few observation towers scattered along the route. I thought that they would be easy to access and actually built onto the bridge, but the first two I passed weren’t actually on the trail. You had to walk off through the forest to reach them. That was a bit too much effort for me today so I didn’t bother to go and find the first two.

As I continued my walk there was a lovely cooling breeze that kept me from getting too hot. It did however blow my hat off at one point and I did fear that it would be a goner as my reactions were just a bit too slow. I did manage to get it back after it danced along the bridge a bit. I continued on taking in the views and I could see the final observation tower not too far in the distance. This one was actually on the path at the end. I didn’t really enjoy the walk up the stairs of the tower as you could see through the metal and see what was below you i.e. how far from the floor you are. I prefer to not know. Also there were quite a few people on the top floor of the observation tower and while not crowded, it was still too many people for my liking. I don’t like too many people around me when up a height especially in a pushy country like China. I headed back down the stairs and consulted the map to see which way to go to leave. I decided to take the shorter trail back through the forest. This route was just under three kilometres and it was a nice walk back through the forest. I got some nice views of the surrounding countryside and the red bridge. I was also impressed with the vending machine; pick the drink you want, scan the QR code on your payment app and pay, then the bottle is dispensed. I also took a walk on the hanging bridge, which was a little too bouncy for my liking. The exit I headed out of the park from wasn’t too convenient and I ended up walking another 2-3 kilometres to the subway station. I could have got a bus, but it took almost as long as the walk.

---