The motorcycle migration: The Chinese shunning public transport in quest to get home for Lunar New Year

The thrum of motorcycles echoes over a Chinese mountain road, where hundreds of thousands are shunning public transport to take the highway home during the world's largest annual human migration.

China's 245 million migrant workers - twice the entire population of Japan - generally have to travel on jam-packed trains or buses to get to their hometown to see their families for the Lunar New Year.

But this year more than 600,000 are expected to ride by motorcycle, according to state-run media, making gruelling journeys of several hundred kilometres for the country's biggest festival, while a hardened few are even cycling.

"I'm excited, I want to get back home as soon as possible," said Mo Renshuang, a shoe factory worker who stopped to stretch his legs at a rest stop several hours into his 700 kilometre (430 mile) trip.He was heading from Guangdong, one of China's richest provinces, to Guangxi - one of its poorest regions.

Mo has not seen his two children for half a year, he said, and had strapped a supermarket trolley to the back of his motorbike containing a suitcase, two toy cars, a toy horse and a pair of blue children's boots.

"Pretty creative, right?" he said.More than 158,000 bikers have passed the rest stop in the last fortnight, police estimate, as riders sharing the same hometown drive together in convoys and stop for free cups of porridge.