Lian Hua Shan National Nature Reserve, Gansu Province, China 中國 甘肅 蓮花山國家自然保護區 27th May to 7th June 2009 by John Holmes
 
 
Admission Ticket
 
Generally in China I would expect there to be a charge for admission to the temple or reserve area, but as part of the birding event I was not asked to get one and neglected to find out this detail. There are checkpoints between HQs and Tang Fang Tan, presumably to prevent people without tickets going up and unauthorised timber coming down.
 
Reserve HQs (elev. 2,000m)
 
The HQs and Reserve entrance at Lianlu are 500 metres south of the 179 km marker (and a large stone gateway) on route S311. It seems that only one bus daily from Lanzhou terminates at Lianlu itself, but from any other southbound bus it is only 100 metres (eastwards) across a bridge to reserve HQs. The HQs is among cultivated fields at the edge of the Tao river, which flows north to join the Yellow river near Lanzhou. The valley of Mo Gou with some dry stone cliffs provides some birding variety nearby.
 
The “Lianhuashan Hotel”  (desk phone 0930-4501388/4501047 –RMB120/night) is at the left hand side of the first square compound.  Clean, with western-style toilets, but many of the shower units are faulty. Most domestic visitors come the see the famous temple near Tang Fang Tan (20km away), or hike up to the summit of Lian Hua Shan.
 
 
Lian Hua Shan site access
 
Lian Hua Shan is about 120 km directly south of Gansu’s provincial capital, Lanzhou. Public buses from Lanzhou’s south gate bus station take about three hours to reach Lianlu, taking the highway to Lintao and then the S311 road to Kangle. From Kangle buses with final destinations such as Yeliguan, Zhuoni, and Xincheng proceed south down route S311.
 
 
Core Area (elev. 2,800m)
 
To get to the temple and nearby Tang Fang Tan (edge of core area) a vehicle must be hired to go the 20 km uphill.  The going rate is 60 RMB.  Once at Tang Fang Tan birding can be done along the core area track (3km) towards the research station at Sha He Tan (see map), up the hill towards the mountain peak (3,578m), or back down the paved road.  The Tang Fang Tan guesthouse is 400m beyond the car park at the foot of the temple steps.  I was charged RMB 50/night.   The building had a rather ambitious-looking exterior, but the “ensuite” facilities were locked, and ablutions were in one communal area per floor. Actually, Tang Fang Tan will be frozen at night for several months a year, and burst pipes must be a problem. Electricity was provided by a petrol-powered generator for a couple of hours each evening.