Manbo beach

The night spent in Xincheng, the morning grey but dry, we walk down towards Manbo beach, crossing the anti tank defences guarding the long, grey, shingle stretching out in both directions. Beyond the whitened crested tumblings of the waves turquoise waters, darkening in distance, further, cliffs rise steeply above the horizon, low clouds cutting across slopes, slicing summits, flattened beneath the weight of the heavens, their shapes darkened intimations of the coastline. The beach itself is a scattering of stones and pebbles, finer grained as we descent the gentle slops towards the tideline, endless variations of composition and patterns, veined and weathered, worn smooth by wind and water before being deposited, for the moment, here.

A bus journey later we begin the walk up to the Qingshui cliffs, mostly along the side of the highway, through long, damp tunnels cut into the hillsides, the old road along the coast blocked off beyond gates and barriers. Around the car park at the entrance of the trail groups have assembled, breaking their journeys, gathering for the views, the eastern edge of the island rising sheer from the ocean and towering a couple of thousand meters above; at their base caves are visible, eroded by the incessant tides, protruding rocks and columns rising from the bright ocean. But the path we've set out to walk doesn't exist. A few hundred meters along the old road a fence has been constructed. Beyond it the road continues, surface scattered with the debris of previous landslides and rockfalls, boulders surrounded by shrubs and grasses as nature reclaims the route, while we're forced to turn back.

Beneath us a fisherman stands amidst a jumble of boulders, jade waters forming crests and foaming as they break upon the rocks, he standing above them, as the tide ebbs and flows,. I'd noticed a path, we return to it, descend the deserted and overgrown track, beneath the railway and scrambling down through rocks, crunching beneath our feat, erode into pebbles; if we return in a few thousand years maybe it'll be sand - it's easy to turn Blakean here, to find the universe in a grain of sand or the design within the complexity of veins running through a slab of marble. In truth it's the kind of place that almost demands that you allow the mind to ramble unchained, to find it's place within the surrounding turmoil, a change of context and perspective but, today, it's more than enough just to stand upon this slither of beach and watch the waves arrive, listen to the roar of wind and water as they crash upon the edge of the land, a symphony funnelling into this valley and breaking upon the slopes behind us.

The walk back finds the road north jammed with the trail of traffic, slow moving, lights trailing as far as the eye can see in both directions, the slow crawl back towards the city…