We woke up on our first full day around Taroko a little too early. Well, Wyatt and Zoe woke Ted up too early; Eleanor and I slept in a little until 7:30. We had this big room, Japanese style, in the main house of the bed and breakfast. Our room was East-facing so when the sun rose at 5:30 so did Wy. Ted took the little ones around the house and the farm before breakfast.
Outside.
The kids loved talking to these chickens. They did wonder why there were 3 on the first day and only 2 the next day though.
Can you spot the lizard?
Banana tree
The main house is not pictured I guess. We did not get to stay in one of the cute cabins. The other building is the restaurant part. What a calm, relaxing place. Behind all that fog is the mountain range.
After breakfast, we packed up our stuff for a day of hiking. We had stayed up late the night before talking (with google translate) with the owner's son who gave us great hiking recommendations and showed us some of his photography work. He dropped us off near the 7-11 this morning to catch the Taroko bus.
We had to time it based on road closures. They were working hard.
Today, we decided on the Baiyang Trail. The trail was made by Taipower back in the 70s when they were considering damning the waterfalls for hydroelectric power. It's 2.1 km each way and cuts through 7 tunnels along the way. You need flashlights because some of the tunnels are quite long, one is almost half a kilometer! I'm scared of tunnels anyway. Add an earthquake a week earlier to loosen up the rocks and I'm sort of freaked out. I don't want the kids to get freaked out though and I do want to see those falls. So I grin and bear it.
We get off the bus at the same point as yesterday and then walk about a kilometer up the slight hill and into the tunnel where the trail starts.
Here is tunnel #1, a very long one. Deep breath.
Wait, what does that sign say? Rockfalls, wasps, and venomous snakes. No big deal, I guess. Here we go.
We made it! And what a view on the other side!
Can you spot the large monkey right in the middle? He was checking us out, too.
Tunnel #2
The girls were loving striking silhouette poses so Wy had to join in too.
Some earthquake damage?
Entering tunnel #3. We are about to reach the big cliff portion of the hike.
Rock cairns.
The kids' contribution.
The rock surface looked really cool.
The kids got really into posing on this hike.
Which tunnel is this? I've lost count. Oh that's right, #5. On the other side of this tunnel we will be able to see the waterfalls.
There is the top tier. Pretty great, right?
This is the tunnel that brought us here.
This suspension bridge was my nightmare. It wobbled so much and though there was some netting on the side, if a kid fell, s/he would be a goner. I froze in the middle but reminded myself that was the dumbest place to freeze and then quickly crossed the rest of the way. The kids were ahead of me and also made it safely.
Now we have to go back across this thing.
I crossed first so I could take pictures of the kids and Ted crossing. I thought they would walk calmly but Eleanor was practically skipping/sashaying. I nearly had a heart attack.
Wyatt wanted to do a special pose once he reached me. I don't know where he gets this.
Two more tunnels until we reach the end of the trail at the cave that houses the Water Curtain (falls inside a cave).
Okay, this is important. The Geological Society of Taiwan has deemed this cave unsound so it is technically closed. There is a bar blocking most of the cave, but it's still easy to get inside it. There were people coming out when we approached. At first I said I wasn't going to do it and hoped the kids wouldn't either. The kids said they wanted to try it so that meant I needed to go with them. Deep breath.
About two minutes after we entered, Zoe decided she wanted to head back. "Thank goodness," I thought. Eleanor turned back with us. Ted was carrying Wyatt and they reached the curtain.
When Ted came back, Zoe decided to check it out with him. Then Eleanor took a turn. In the end, everyone saw the water curtain except me. I am fine with that. Oh, we hiked in sneakers but visited the Curtain with flip-flops. El lost her flip flop to the waterfall unfortunately.
We ate our bananas and started heading back.
There were many pockets of butterflies along the way.
After leaving the trail, we walked back down the slight hill to the village.
We picked up some more sausages and added some rice steamed in bamboo.
Then we caught the bus to the Taroko gate. The driver took his time and stopped twice for a smoke break so this "quick trip" took 1.5 hours. It's a good thing we grabbed those sausages!
We stopped at 7-11 for a few more snacks and made it back to the bed and breakfast for some play before dark. Ted and I still had to figure out where we going to go the next day because we hadn't decided yet. We did know we would be leaving this gorgeous spot after breakfast tomorrow.
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