23 February to 12 March 2023
Our first stop in Taiwan was Taipei. We only allowed one day and so used it to hike up Elephant Mountain and go to the once world's tallest building Taipei 101 (now number 11). Elephant Mountain was quite challenging with a lot of steps but the views of the city were phenomenal. Taipei 101 was expensive and visibility poor so we only looked at it at ground level. Cool looking building though.
The next day we took the train down to a tiny town called Fushi, next to Taroko Gorge. We struggled to find a place that would do vegetarian and gluten free and were lucky to find a single vegetarian restaurant called Truku, that was open for only 2 hours a day. A local tour of the gorge followed the next day and was a great day. We walked along Shakadang River seeing its crystal clear turquoise coloured water finishing with a swim in her undies by Elizabeth and a chewy snack of millet cake. Next stop, Eternal Springs Shrine with a walk up to Changuang Temple and a ring of the bell tower. Then there was the Tunnel of 9 turns. An amazing ledge built into the mountain along a raging river. Then cross the Buluowan Suspenion Bridge and finishing up at Swallows Grotto. A fantastic day out. The next day we caught a bus back into the gorge and added Xiaozhuilu and Lushui trails to our visited list and went back to the Tunnel of Nine Turns. That place is amazing!
The next day we continued on our trip down south on the east side to a little town called Yuli. The tiny town is surrounded by mountains and so we hired some bicycles. On a 10 km circle route we passed vast rice paddies framed by clear, lush, green tree covered mountains on a morning of clear skies. Awesome beautiful ride.
Next stop on our trip around Taiwan was Kaohsiung. Our first full day was on the 2nd March which coincided with our 26 year anniversary! We hopped on a bus and headed over to Lotus Pond where we spent a leisurely 3 hours traversing its 3.2km. Along the way crossed a bridge to an island full of a large variety of birds being looked down upon by a giant emperor, then on to the Tiger and Dragon Pagodas and finished up with the Spring and Autumn Pavilions. That night we went for a stroll to Love River coming across a scenic cruise to finish up our anniversary on.
Continuing on our journey we travel around the bottom and head up and centre to the Alishan National Scenic Area. 2,000m up and consisting of numerous mountains, ponds and forests it is a bit of a trekkers' haven. The place had an internal train system to get you to and from trail heads and on day one we caught the train to the Shuishan trail and hiked to the 2,000 year old giant tree, the marvelous Magnolia garden, the sacred and 3 generation tree and finished at the fabulous garden of cherry blossoms called King Cherry. Next day we headed off to Mt Ogasawara on the Sunrise trail. We had clear views to Jade Mountain, the highest peak in Taiwan. We went down to see the cherry blossoms again which had a whole different atmosphere and feel about them as the clouds and fog came in. On the last morning we caught the train to the sunrise spot as it came up over Mt Ogasawara and then caught the bus for a 3 hour ride to Sun Moon Lake.
We started our time at Sun Moon Lake with a walk to 9 Frogs Stack, a statue of 9 frogs on top of each other in the lake, and found that you could see all 9 frogs as the water level was so low. The ground was so dry it had that cracked pattern on it. We then caught a bus to Wenwu Temple and walked to the top to see the intricate carvings and wide view of the lake. We then continued walking and then hired bikes from a bike shop to Touche Dam. We missed the last bus and had to catch a taxi back.
The next day we were going to take the cable car to see the view but when we got there it was not open yet and very expensive. Instead we walked to the Cien Pagoda and climbed to the top where we had panoramic views of the whole lake. We met a couple from Taipei who shared some stories of their life in Taiwan and took us to the Xiangsha Visitor Centre. After being dropped off in town we took the boat to the other side of the lake. The next day we took the train to Taichung.
In Taichung we visited the 921 Earthquake Museum, being the date (21 Sept 1999) a huge earthquake occurred in this area. Very interesting and informative and based around a school that was decimated showing the cracked classrooms and a huge uplift through a running track on the school oval. Afterwards we went to a fully gluten free bakery for snacks, the only one we found in the whole of Taiwan.
On our last day in Taiwan we went to the Dakeng Scenic Area This area had a huge choice of hiking trails of various difficulty in a large clean green area. We took a tough trail that had a surprisingly large number of people out enjoying nature and was peppered with market and food stalls. Going straight up to a viewing platform we took a different trail down which was more quiet without a lot of stalls or people. Afterwards we decided to treat ourselves to the 2nd best icecream shop in Taichung, “Fourth Credit Union”. I made the assumption that the most famous one (Myahara) might be too busy. Both of them in old fancy renovated buildings looking more like jewellers' shops than ice cream. The main also carrying a huge range of premium chocolate displayed behind glass like jewellery overseen by stern looking posh staff. The second best was more our speed and had easy seating for eating your ice cream. Some of the stuff people were buying looked like works of art. We had a standard 3 scoops with toppings, yum.
