Danxia Mountain National key scenic spot is also a national geological andgeomorphic nature reserve, with a total area of 215 square kilometers. It spansRenhua and Qujiang counties and consists of Danxia Mountain, dashishan andshaoshishan. Shaoshishan scenic spot is only ten kilometers away from the urbanarea. Danxia Mountain scenic spot, which was developed earlier, is the mainscenic area at present, 50 kilometers away from Shaoguan City. It has more than380 stone peaks, stone castles, stone walls, stone bridges and 36 caves. Itconsists of three landscape layers: the lower layer is the jinshiyan landscapelayer. The stone walls here are crisscross in five colors and change in fourseasons. The largest cave in the thirty-six caves in Danxia Mountain, jinshiyan,is hanging on the Baizhang cliff near the river. In the Northern Song Dynasty,the monks were attracted by the wonderful scenery of the grotesque caves here,so they opened up this place as a pure land for Buddhism, and built 18 nunneriestogether. This is the beginning of the landscape architecture of DanxiaMountain.
Today, most of the buildings in those years are not there. The existingnunnery was rebuilt in 1981. In addition to restoring the original Buddhaimages, this restoration has also created a new form of Guanyin Bodhisattva andhis thirty-two "Ying bodies" (i.e. incarnations), with different expressions.Mr. Zhao Chengcheng Chu once wrote a poem praising: "the clay statues are nevertired of kneading, yearning for Dunhuang and sighing for the past sages." alongthe way, there are Mengjue pass, Tongtian cave, yixiantian, Mawei spring andother scenic spots. The middle layer is the landscape layer of biechuan temple.Biezhuan temple was built in 1662 A.D. in the first year of Emperor Kangxi ofthe Qing Dynasty. It was built by Dan GUI, a righteous and eminent monk in thelate Ming Dynasty. It is one of the top ten jungles in Lingnan.
The main landscapes of this floor include Jiege morning bell, Songjianwind, Zhupo misty rain, Shuangchi Bihe, Yuanyang tree, bieyoutian, etc. Theearliest and largest inscriptions on the cliffs are "Jinyan" written by Nan Zhaorulei, each of which is more than five feet in size. The largest number ofinscriptions is "records of Danxia Mountain" written by Li chongmao in the lateMing Dynasty, with 1344 characters in full. From the biechuan temple, after thesecond gate was closed, we climbed up an almost vertical stone path along theiron rope and came to the top landscape layer of Danxia Mountain. This is notonly the best place to watch the sunrise, but also the ancient and modernlandscape such as Luoding futu, Ruquan Chunliu, Yutai Shuangqi, HongqiaoYongcui, etc. the cemetery of Dangui monk is also built here. At the foot ofDanxia Mountain, there is a long and narrow reservoir called Xianglong lake.Around the lake, there are three rocks, six caves, eighteen peaks and beautifulscenery, which are very attractive.