14 Days in Nanping

A raft down the nine bends, about 9.5 km and an hour and a half below the red cliffs of the range UNESCO listed in 1999 as a mixed site.

1. nanping jiuqu stream raft
2. nanping wuyigong song street

Tianyou Peak, 408.8 m, for the bend-by-bend view; the One-Line Sky crevice; the six mother tea bushes at Jiulongke, their picking ended in 2006.

1. nanping tianyou peak
2. nanping dahongpao cliff

An unhurried second mountain day on the park's northern side — streams and falls, and the Tianxin temple area above the tea fields; keep the pace slow and the camera busy.

1. nanping wuyi national park byway

Xiamei, where 17th-century caravans began the run to the Russian border, some 13,000 km out; an afternoon tasting in the tea-culture park.

1. nanping xiamei village
2. nanping xiangjiang tea park

About 50 km southeast, Wufu kept Zhu Xi from age fourteen for close to fifty years of study and teaching — the Xingxian old street and the Purple-Yang study still stand.

1. nanping wufu town

Zhu Xi moved to Kaoting in 1192 and taught in his final years; nearby kilns fired the dark-glazed jian bowls, several of which survive in Japan as national treasures.

1. nanping kaoting academy
2. nanping jianzhan culture street

An hour and a half west into Shaowu, a county-level city under Nanping — a market town on the old Fujian-Jiangxi route whose Heping Academy goes back more than a thousand years.

1. nanping heping ancient town

A morning among the swallow-nest tea rows of the ecological-garden model; since 2010 the Impression da-hong-pao show has played the valley at night.

1. nanping yanzike tea garden

A drive on the 250-plus-km No.1 Scenic Byway, opened in 2024, around the national park's edge — viewpoints, villages and streams; the summit of Huanggang, about 2,160 m, lies in the protected core with restricted access.

1. nanping wuyi national park byway

An honestly labelled cross-province day — rail north via Shangrao puts Jinhua about three hours out for the Double-Dragon Cave of the schoolbook essay and the old Wuzhou quarter.

1. nanping jinhua shuanglong cave

Another cross-province day, labelled as such — three hours by road into Lishui for Xiandu's 170.8-m Dinghu Peak and the Yellow-Empire temple on the river.

1. nanping lishui xiandu

A second Zhejiang day in the same prefecture — the hill villages of Songyang, dozens of them on heritage registers, with tea terraces and timber bridges; return to Wuyishan for the night.

1. nanping songyang villages

Two hours south to the old prefecture seat, where the Jianxi and the Xixi meet to form the Min — the Nine-Peak park across the water and the double-stream promenade below.

1. nanping jiufeng hill

A last morning in the resort's tea market and a slow walk of the Song street, then the afternoon train or flight out of Wuyishan.

1. nanping wuyigong song street