China stone diary

Quarry – n24-40-111
E117-50-403
At 8am we were met by Candy from the Dawa Stone Company. She has made the arrangements locally to document my kerbstone being cut from the quarry face. We began by driving for perhaps two hours heading inland. That makes it sound as if we travelled a great distance, but with the roads in places being little more then riverbeds and mountain paths, were probably no more than 50 miles from Xiamen. Eventually we began driving up a steep mountain road through a tropical landscape of banana plants and green lakes. My first big surprise was that the quarry was not the hole in the ground I expected, but a natural granite outcrop on the top of a mountain. We had to walk the last part in heat it would be hard to describe. Simply stepping out of the car was enough without a half hour hike. Unbelievably Candy had managed to get permission for me to film the quarrying of the kerbstone. I don’t remember being so exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel, but what a worthwhile day.