off for a wander in the hills around the Wuji Tianyuan temple, cherry blossom and historic trails... and then as we wandered along to the temple an unexpected sign, a path up towards a crater lake, only a couple of km, an hour according to the signpost.... aye right... should have known better as soon as the first set of ropes appeared really but... onwards where some mildly unpleasant scrambling led to a narrowing path, ledge may be more accurate, and then a point where retreat would have been the favoured course if it wasn't for the knowledge of what had gone before... eventually the path levelled out, shafts of light offering illusions of the ridge but leading only to further ascensions... checking the time, already an hour an a half and still climbing, the route descending narrowing and muddy, winding along rocky stream beds, the first sight of other people on the trail, another half hour and it eventually opened up into woodland, descending the edge of the crater lake we'd been promised... time having run on we found ourselves back at the path up to datun shan, my knee aching at the memory of last time... a sign saying 1.2km to erziping...keeping to the low road until we reached the next sign a couple of km later saying 500m, while about a km later the path opened onto the pools, the air suddenly cold, misty, heavier mists plummeting down the slopes above, another sign claiming that it was 2.8km to the bus stop with the light beginning to fade... the signs now farcical, 400m to the end of the trail becoming, after about a 400m walk, 400m to the trail end.... arriving at the car park, finding it almost empty, the bus stop saying that the last bus was at 1730 and it's now 1743, but the times here are for the beginning of the route, each stop a hopeful guess, crossed fingers and a couple of minutes later it appeared, the long walk down gratefully avoided this time, the two hour walk having taken five and a half... and, of course, back down in the city there was snowflake ice and egg roll...