LuFeng Jurassic Park. Adventures with Dinosaurs

Halfway between Kuning and Dali exists one of the more random and unexpected attractions: Lufeng Dinosaur Valley. 

Jacki, Dan and I decided to make the trip and investigate somewhere that sparked our curiosity.

The night before, the three of us split up and went to different hot spots of Kunming nightlife and agreed to meet the following morning at the train station. In a moment of pure genius, I lied and told the other two a different time for the train, making it a half hour earlier than in reality. A move that proved fantastic, as Jacki would have missed the train. Dan, on the other hand, did miss the train, and after many, many failed attempts to contact him, we went and got on our train. 

A 45-minute train to the small town of Lufeng, and then we had to go find the bus station. A tiny place with 2 foreigners trying to get to a dinosaur park caused confusion, but we were well looked after. One woman even made sure to tell the next woman on shift, "the foreigners are going to see dinosaurs," and pointed to us. 

We were put on a small bus and drove another 40 minutes before being dropped off on the side of a highway near the park entrance. To say it was well hidden would be a serious understatement. We walked along a dirt track with about 200 goats in the general direction before eventually finding giant gates mimicking the Jurassic Park gates from the film. 

The park itself is long and thin, following a central lake slightly uphill to the main buildings. The weather was perfect for our day trip, and we were lucky enough to be one of the very few people in the park, so we had the run of the place. 

All along the lake are giant dinosaurs in various poses, with which we had a lot of fun taking pictures. 

At the top of the hill are two buildings housing the collections, one of which is a museum complete with informational videos that looked like they could have been left over from the 80s.

The second was the main attraction, a huge hangar with rows and rows of complete dinosaur skeletons. At the time, Lufeng Dinosaurs Valley holds the most complete dinosaur skeletons on the planet. 

Standing at the top of the stairs overlooking a mass of dinosaurs of all sizes was really quite impressive and just so unexpected for some random little place in the middle of nowhere. 

After leaving the building, we ran across the gift shop, which turned out to be a lot of fun. Jacki and I both teach kids, so we stocked up on our plastic toys and made our way back towards the lake, stopping for the occasional photo op and a quick meal before heading back to Kunming in time for last orders. 

chop sabers

 Pictures from a very fun birthday.