October 23rd: Huangpo 黄坡 to Zhanjiang 湛江 － 24.17 miles
Day 10
It appears that our trend is reversing. What was once rural is now urban. We took a detour on S081 (which appeared to be S373 on Google map) from our trusty G325 to get away from the crowds.
The new S081 seems to be the renovated S373. Rewarded with a broad and smooth shoulder and less traffic we were quite proud of ourselves until arriving at an enormous bridge which only warned us that bicycles were not allowed at the entrance. The thought of backtracking was uninspiring under the searing sun. Upon a careful examination of our not so trust worthy Google map, there appeared to be a little road along the shoreline leading to a ferry pier 1 mile away at the end of old S373. We decided to give Google maps a chance to redeem itself. Following a road leading south of the bridge we passed a stadium complex under construction. Our road soon turned into overgrown sidewalk no more than 2 meters wide, which we expected to dwindle away at any moment. Surprisingly this tiny little path delivered us, as promised, to a ferry.
We disembarked right into the heart of Zhanjiang, a rather large, modern city with all the traffic of those that live there. I was a little disheartened that we were to enter another series of major urban areas after feeling relieved that we had just escaped them. Looking at Google maps it seemed that this was the case. Luckily as were fleeing the city, we found lodging at the outskirts of town and happily called it a day at 2pm.