The most popular one-day parent-child travel guide for autumn and winter, just read one article.

On National Day 1st, I participated in a parent-child Gongcha Ancient Trail | 6-kilometer scenic hike + homemade beggar's chicken and archery hiking activity. It felt great, the amount of exercise was just right for me, so I took part again on the 2nd.

I heard that this is the ace parent-child travel itinerary. During the National Day holidays, one car per day was not enough, so they basically added another car temporarily. This shows the popularity of this itinerary and everyone's recognition of it. Summarize your feelings about the most popular parent-child itineraries over the past two days.

First, we went to the Huzhou Changxing Tribute Tea Ancient Road, which is a first-level ancient road in Zhejiang Province and one of the ten classic ancient roads in Changxing.

The Xuanjiaoling Mountain that we hiked through is also known as the Chuijiaoling Mountain and the Zhuomuling Mountain. It was originally the watershed between Changxing and Yixing, and was also the dividing line between Jiangsu and Zhejiang. It has been recorded in many historical books. It is said that there are purple clay ore veins underground in Changxing and Yixing on both sides of Xuanjiaoling. Therefore, the tea in this area is bright purple in color, tender, and has tightly wrapped leaf buds, resembling bamboo shoots. After brewing, it has a fragrant aroma and a sweet aftertaste. The tea saint Lu Yu visited the mountain many times to pick and taste tea. In his "The Classic of Tea", he listed the tea from Xuanjiaoling as top-grade. It is one of the producing areas of Yixing's "Yangxian Tea" and Changxing's "Zisun Tea".

Since the discovered ancient road passes through the "Xuanjiaoling" site, it is believed that this ancient road should be the important "Tea Mountain Road" that has connected the two famous tribute tea producing areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang since the Tang Dynasty, and can be called the "Yangxian-Guzhu Tribute Tea Ancient Road."

There is also a story here. It is said that the Tribute Tea Road was named after a story from the Tang Dynasty. During the Tang Dynasty, during the reign of Wu Zetian, her son Li Dan was demoted and later married a woman from western Hunan. After Wu Zetian stepped down, Li Dan ascended the throne and made his wife empress. When the empress returned home to visit her family, she brought local green tea with her, which was greatly loved by the emperor and officials in Beijing. This green tea was designated as tribute tea and was called "Empress's Tea" by the people. From then on, the official route for tribute tea was opened up.

Since the Tang Dynasty, in the fifth year of Dali (770 AD), Changxing Guzhu Zisun Tea was listed as tribute tea, and it has been more than 800 years since then.

This is the background story of the Gongcha Ancient Road we are going to visit today.

Taking the National Day traffic jam into consideration, we set off from Shanghai at around 7:15 and normally arrived in 3 hours. We arrived at 11:30 on the 1st, and thought the traffic jam would be better on the 2nd, but we didn't arrive until 12:00. As expected, everyone was already familiar with the National Day, so they either left early or late and tried to avoid traveling on the 1st.

After arriving, we entered a farm house in Shaodong Village, Changxing, Zhejiang, where the children participated in wilderness survival game experiences, including archery, feeding rabbits, eating roasted sweet potatoes, popping popcorn, making beggar's chicken, and playing with flints.

The sweet potatoes were the smaller kind found locally and very sweet. We were a little hungry when we arrived, so each of us ate a little first.
Beggar's Chicken A few children experience making a chicken with mud
Feeding rabbits and archery are also activities that many children like.
It is basically impossible for children to light a flint with a gun. It requires speed and strength. Only a few fathers succeeded in lighting it.
However, it is almost unanimous that the most popular item is popcorn! This is the traditional popcorn we had when we were kids, the kind that would explode with a bang. Everyone took turns to experience the steps of shaking the boiler and the blower. Parents liked to take pictures. When I was a kid, the one that was popped was corn, maybe in Zhejiang, the one that was popped was rice. After it popped, the boss poured the popcorn into a big basket, and a bunch of kids rushed over and started grabbing it. Some mothers complained that they usually wouldn’t eat the food they bought, but now they are rushing to buy it. Sure enough, the food you grab is delicious.

The tour guide said that this is an autumn and winter program, and you can come and experience digging bamboo shoots in the spring.

We had lunch at a farm house, and there was beggar's chicken, but it was not made by us. It seems that beggar's chicken needs to be roasted for 1-2 hours. I guess the one we roasted was for the tourists the next day. There are also locally grown cucumbers, green vegetables, etc. Some people think that the ingredients are large and natural, fresh and delicious. The taste is fresh and overall it’s pretty good. The standard fee is HKD50 per person.

Start hiking at around 14:00. The forest coverage rate of the Gongcha Ancient Road exceeds 93%. Along the way, there are streams, green bamboos, tea gardens, and mottled stone paths.

Because we were taking the parent-child route, we walked in a straight line with no forks in the road. The first 3.5 kilometers are bluestone roads, which are relatively easy to walk on. The middle 1.5 kilometers are climbing, climbing about 300 meters. The steps on No. 1 are very slippery when it rains, but they dry quickly on No. 2.

On the mountain, we passed the boundary marker between Yixing, Jiangsu and Changxing, Huzhou, Zhejiang, so this is a cross-provincial hiking route. We had the feat and significance of hiking across two provinces in one go.

There is a "Jinghui Pavilion" on the top of the mountain. It is said that in the Tang Dynasty, officials from both places would hold a grand ceremony here every year when it came time to pick and process tribute tea. There are also some legends here, such as Sun Quan once shot a tiger here, Lu Yu once tasted tea here, and Guo Moruo once came here for research. Then we went down the mountain from an exit called Twenty-three Bay.
I think the 300 meters up the mountain is the most difficult part. Going down the mountain is much easier because there is a stone tablet marking each bay.

At the bottom of the mountain is a market in Yixing, Jiangsu, and behind it is the main road to the village. The hike is about 7.2 kilometers, and if you park outside the village it is about 8 kilometers. Everyone including kindergarten children persevered and it was a relatively comfortable trip.

As for supplies, both the farmhouse where you depart and the market where you arrive sell water, but if you have children, you can bring some snacks. There are restrooms at the farmhouse, in front of the boundary marker, at the market, and in the parking lot outside the village.

We returned to Shanghai around 16:30. There was no traffic jam for two days on the way back, and we basically arrived in Shanghai around 19:30-20:00.