Jiuzhou Posthouse · Tianmen Gully Scenic Area

Jiuzhou Posthouse · Tianmen Gully Scenic Area

Jiuzhou Posthouse · Tianmen Gully Scenic Area is a national AAA-level tourist attraction.

Jiuzhou refers to the administrative divisions during China’s Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, namely: Jizhou, Yanzhou, Qingzhou, Yongzhou, Xuzhou, Yangzhou, Jingzhou, Yuzhou, and Liangzhou. Since then, Jiuzhou has come to represent the land of China.

A posthouse, first established in the Qin Dynasty, was an inn set up by the government along major routes to accommodate officials and couriers, and also functioned as a facility for horse changes and resupply.

Our Jiuzhou Posthouse can be likened to a resting and starting point on life’s journey, symbolizing the gatherings and partings of a life filled with joy and hardship, drifting, striving, and happiness. It has traveled from ancient times and re-emerged in today’s peaceful era, aiming to provide a place of leisure and recuperation for busy urban dwellers.

Yingde Tianmen Gully Posthouse is the first Jiuzhou Posthouse built in pristine nature, featuring strong Chinese cultural characteristics. It promotes the harmonious beauty of humans and nature, tradition and modernity, and serves as a platform for exploring pristine ecology and organizing outdoor activities. It is a home for all who love nature and are close to mountains and waters. Tianmen Gully is divided geographically into nine stations and one corridor, namely Stations One to Nine and the Water-Rock Corridor, shaped like a “V.” Originating from over 1,000 meters above sea level, it is a V-shaped high-mountain valley. The entire gully features four major drops and over a hundred cascading waterfalls, stretching over 5,000 meters with more than 10,000 steps to climb. The forest coverage reaches the top of the gully, and everywhere you go, you can breathe air rich in negative ions. Among them, the water and rocks are particularly stunning—the water is crystal clear, sweet, and refreshing, while the rocks are like crystals or crimson red. The mingling of water and stone creates a magical charm. Among the wonders is the waterfall descending from Tianmen, hence named Tianmen Waterfall, with a vertical single-drop height of 136 meters, the highest in the province. The 1,500-meter-long Water-Rock Corridor above Tianmen is like a fairyland, with countless pools and ceaseless springs. To further bring people closer to nature, Jiuzhou Posthouse Tianmen Gully Posthouse has successively built eco-tourism wellness platforms such as the Treehouse Village, Tree Hot Springs, and Tree Restaurant, along with a campsite featuring Chinese cultural elements. It advocates the harmonious beauty of humans and nature, tradition and modernity, with no excessive man-made structures, showcasing pristine ecology. It is a platform for planning, organizing, and implementing outdoor activities, and a home for all who love nature and are close to mountains and waters.

The Tianmen Gully Tree Hot Springs area is located in the primeval forest at the foot of the ancient Yao Mountain. Its strata are rich in geothermal resources, and the water is pure, being an extremely precious small-molecule-group natural active soft water containing various trace elements beneficial to the human body. The herbs used in the hot spring medicinal baths are all locally sourced from Yao Mountain, rooted in the primeval forest, free from any modern industrial pollution, and grown in a purely natural environment, offering the miraculous gifts of nature.

Enjoying the health benefits of hot spring bathing is not entirely due to the efficacy of the spring water; more importantly, it is determined by the spiritual and sensory effects brought about by the integration of the bathing process with the surrounding environment. Just like the tree hot springs here, when you are in the boundless wilderness forest, with a childlike heart, amid the drifting steam of the hot springs, admiring the rainbow of seven colors, you can achieve the greatest recovery of body, mind, and soul.

In the dense primeval forest, wild vines sway, insects chirp, birds sing, and squirrels leap. Surrender your body and soul completely to nature. Scoop up a ladle of the gentle warm

Yingde Tianmen Gully is located in Shigutang Town, Yingde City, Guangdong Province, and is a relatively undeveloped pristine natural scenic area. The Tianmen Gully scenic area is divided into more than ten famous natural landscapes, including Nine Stations and One Corridor, spanning a total of 5,000 meters. With over 10,000 steps to climb and an elevation gain of over 800 meters across four major drops, you can experience the harmonious yet wild primal scenery, especially the more than a hundred cascading waterfalls within the gully. The most magnificent of these is the Eighth Station Tianmen Grand Waterfall, with a single-drop height of 136 meters, the highest in Guangdong Province.

Tianmen Gully is located by the Yingbo Highway in Weizi Village, Bao Township, Shibagu Town, Yingde City, Guangdong Province. The creek for trekking is approximately 3,000 meters long. Based on the original landform, Jiuzhou Posthouse · Tianmen Gully Station and the scenic area can be divided into five sections, each corresponding to a drop: 1. From the highway to Tiankou Stone – 500 meters; 2. From Tiankou Stone to Tianjing Waterfall – 500 meters; 3. From Tianjing Waterfall to Tianzhong Waterfall – 500 meters; 4. From Tianzhong Waterfall to Tianmen Waterfall – 100 meters; 5. From Tianmen Waterfall to Wild Boar Forest – 1,400 meters. Each of these five creek sections has distinct characteristics, which can be described with five words: the first section is “Ancient,” the second “Secluded,” the third “Dangerous,” the fourth “Magical,” and the fifth “Beautiful.” Based on the natural features of each section, the construction of the scenic area only involves minimal embellishment around these traits to highlight the “Ancient, Secluded, Dangerous, Magical, and Beautiful” aspects even more. The precipitous cliffs, the magical Tianmen, the majestic and spectacular waterfalls, the graceful and elongated Water-Rock Corridor, and the fresh air rich in negative ions—all come together to create a perfect experience: the beauty of the posthouse path in nature, and joy found in this lifetime.

Tianmen Gully gets its name from the naturally formed concave shape at its largest drop. Tianmen Gully Station is situated in Bao Mountain, a feng shui treasure land in the central-northwest of Guangdong Province, at the mouth of Tianmen Gully. Bao Mountain was historically known as “Yao Mountain.” Tianmen Gully Station directly manages two scenic areas: one is the Tianmen Gully Scenic Area, and the other is the Bai Niao Tang (High Mountain Prairie) Camp. The main attraction of Tianmen Gully is the Ten-Mile Galaxy, among which the most spectacular is the Tianmen Waterfall, giving the feeling of “water cascading down three thousand feet, as if the Milky Way fell from the sky.” The most magical is the Tianmen, the most mystical is the Tianlai Waterfall, the most secluded is the Tianjing Waterfall, and the most beautiful is the Water-Rock Corridor, stretching approximately 1,400 meters. Strolling through it feels like being in a fairyland. The entire Tianmen Gully is covered with pristine ecological forests, lush greenery, birdsong, and fragrant flowers. The passionate waterfalls leap from peaks 1,500 meters above sea level. The sounds of birds and waterfalls compose a symphony of nature. After rain, when the skies clear, clouds and mist shroud the area, and butterflies flutter all over the mountains, resembling a group of fairies descending to earth. The clear springs after the spring rain, the lush greenery, birdsong, and fragrant flowers in autumn bring abundant wild fruits and red leaves, while in winter there is occasionally a feeling of light snowfall and withering, dreamy and imaginative, reminding you of the hardships of life’s journey and the longing for spring. The eternal natural culture and boundless inner space are the true essence of Yingde Tianmen Gully.

Tianmen Gully is actually a V-shaped high-mountain valley, divided geographically into “Nine Stations and One Corridor,” stretching over 5,000 meters, with over 10,000 steps made of original stone. The Tianmen Gully scenic area can be summarized by three main features: first, the treehouse inn built in the primeval forest, where staying allows one to truly return to nature; second, the water here—streams of all sizes remain crystal clear with a pure taste, and have been known since ancient times as the “Sweet Water Pit”! According to local mountain residents, every year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, villagers within a 30-li radius come to fetch and store water, as the water quality has remained unchanged for a century and is believed to promote health and cure ailments. Third, the diversity and rarity of flora and fauna here are notable, with protected species of first and second grades commonly seen. The state included this area in the ShimenTai Nature Reserve many years ago.

Tianmen Gully is divided geographically into Nine Stations and One Corridor, namely Stations One to Nine and the Water-Rock Corridor, originating from over 1,000 meters above sea level, forming a V-shaped high-mountain valley. The entire gully features four major drops and over a hundred cascading waterfalls, stretching over 5,000 meters. Climbing over 10,000 steps, the forest coverage extends all the way to the top of the gully, and everywhere you go, you can breathe air rich in negative ions. Among them, the water and stones are particularly stunning—the water is crystal clear, sweet, and refreshing, while the stones are like crystals or crimson red. The mingling of water and stone creates a magical charm. Among the wonders is the waterfall descending from Tianmen, hence named Tianmen Waterfall, with a vertical single-drop height of 136 meters, the highest in the province. The 1,500-meter-long Water-Rock Corridor above Tianmen is like a fairyland, with countless pools and ceaseless springs. Legend has it that any mortal who crosses Tianmen and traverses the Water-Rock Corridor, cleansing all worldly dust, can become immortal.

Tianmen Gully can be enjoyed in all seasons—spring for misty rains, summer for cool relief, autumn for hiking, and winter for wellness. The scenery is most beautiful in spring and summer, when the water flowing from Tianmen passes through cliffs, deep pools, and huge rocks, creating blossoms of vitality, lush and graceful, like a group of immortals descending or a ten-mile galaxy falling from the sky. After heavy rain, the mountains are often shrouded in clouds, with rainbows stretching across, making the view of Yingxi resemble a fairyland.

Hiking through the pristine, beautiful, and innocent scenery of Tianmen Gully, every blade of grass, tree, body of water, and rock stirs deep emotions and surging feelings. Mi Fu, the master painter and calligrapher of the Northern Song Dynasty, wrote passionately during his visit in the Xining period: “Indeed, this mountain is high, towering far from the markets. Towering trees cast deep shade, and flying springs descend into the greenery,” vividly depicting the rugged, serene, otherworldly, and fresh natural scenery of Tianmen Gully.

Admission Ticket

Admission Ticket: 50 RMB

Opening Hours

08:00—24:00.

Location

Shigutang Town, Yingde City, Guangdong Province, Bao Weizi Village (western part of Shimentai Nature Reserve) — Jiuzhou Posthouse Yingde Tianmen Gully Scenic Area.

Shigutang Town: [Geographical Location] Shigutang Town is located in the northwest of Yingde City, between 113°3’30”–113°17’15” east longitude and 24°18’15”–24°30’50” north latitude, covering a total area of 355 square kilometers. The town government is 42 kilometers from downtown Yingde. It borders Hengshitang Town to the east, Limeshop Town and HanGuang Town to the south, Dawan Town and Boluo Town to the west, and is adjacent to Ruyuan and Qujiang County to the north. By the end of 1998, Shigutang Town had a total population of 32,249 (including 31,793 Han people and 456 Yao people...  Detailed information on Shigutang Town++