.jpg)
More or less 12,000 years ago, the earth crust rose and the Lijiang River shrank tremendously, which accelerated the formation and development of the Water Moon Cave. It gradually developed into a round cave that can be perceived through. According to the data, the cave is 17 meters long, 9.5 meters wide, 12 meters high and has an area of about 150 square meters.
There's an underground lake at the bottom of the cave which could change its size depending on the rise and fall of water. The mouth of the Water Moon Cave faces towards the sun, and is also known as Chaoyang Dong in China. However, the cave is floating on the water, as of the gigantic moon flowing water, the beautiful images were clear, and real and present, thus the name of Water Moon Cave has been used on its day ever since.
The sight of "The water moon of Elephant Hill" is one of the great marvel in the incomparably beautiful landscape of Guilin. The water moon of Elephant Hill is opposite to the Moon Cave up on Tunnelled Hill from the other side of the river which highs up on the hills as of a full bright moon hanging in the sky.
You may well say so, the water moon on Elephant Hil and the moon rock on Chuan Hill cast a glamour over the area – one in the sky and the other on the water. That forms the remarkably unique scenery known as the "two moons of the Lijiang River.”As it is beautiful all the year round, the Water Moon Cave was compared by Songjibei, a celebrated poet of the Song Dynasty: there is a thin and ineffectual moon under the water; the bright moon floats on the water.
The best traveling time to the Water Moon Cave is on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival when the moon is as bright as silver, you're lucky to catch sight of the water moon of Elephant Hill. There's a pavilion named Chaoyang Pavilion that is built in Song Dynasty and changed its name to Deyue pavilion in Qing Dynasty. Unfortunately, it has been totally destroyed.
As the story goes, on the wall of the cave, there're more than 50 cliff stones carved with the poems of such well-known ancient writers including Lu You, Fan Chengda and Zhang Xiaoxiang. All of them have a power of describing Water Moon Cave with the bygone times. It attracted many poets and scholars who had written a lot of poems and articles to describe the delightful scenery above and below in the Water Moon Cave.