After another great breakfast the people at the hotel's front desk locked up some bags to hold onto for us and helped us figure out how to get to Taipei's main train station. Once there, we bought out tickets to Taroko (a complicated process in Chinese), tried to get some cash out of ATM, and made our way to our platform.
While we waited for Ted, we watched a young team kick around a soccer ball with their coaches who, when finished playing soccer, sat down and played guitar for them.
After only a few minutes, we boarded our train to Taroko.
There was plenty to see. Once we came above ground, the tall buildings were stopping and the mountains and farms were starting. Having lived in the big city of Singapore this past year, we were eager to check out some countryside and get in some nice hikes.
Outside the train we passed rice fields, temples, lots of palm trees and others, mountains, tunnels, bridges, farms and farmers, mines and power plants, and even the Pacific Ocean.
Inside the train, Ted found a spot in the back where the kids could all spread out to play.
After about 2.5 hours we arrived at our stop. We checked out a bicycle rental store and discovered that while they had kids' bikes, they did not have trailers or baby seats. No bike rentals for us then.
We took a taxi to our next hotel, but it was only about 10:30 so we were very early. The taxi driver turned into what I assumed was a driveway but ended up being a regular road. It was so narrow it seemed one way but cars would just swerve half off the road if another car passed, which rarely happened. All of the side roads were like this. The scenery reminded me so much of the movie "My Neighbor Totoro." It was exactly like that. These roads were meant for bicycles and scooters, not big cars.
We pulled into our hotel and at first thought no one was there but eventually the owner came out. We finally figured out she was saying we were there too early, but she helped us figure out a plan for our day and took our bags for us.
We headed off to Taroko Gorge to hike the trail she recommended. Her son dropped us off at the Shakadang Trail at the park's entrance. The hotel owner had tried to explain something else to us that we could tell was important, but we couldn't understand. This was a mistake that we will explain later.
We descended the steps from the bridge that lead to the start of the trail, which follows alongside a river and passes through many small sort of cutout tunnels like this one.
We were never in a full tunnel, just walking under the rocks. There were signs everywhere warning not to linger because of falling rocks. Sure, that's not scary at all considering the major earthquake that hit here exactly one week earlier.
It was totally worth it, though because the hike was gorgeous. I couldn't stop taking pictures. It was so nice to see such green again. And this gorge is well, gorgeous.
This part was a little scary for Mom the Worrier.
As we hiked along, often people would ask us if they could take pictures with the kids. There were many, many people hiking here. It wasn't crowded but there were plenty of people. We were the only Westerners that we know of. Still, almost everyone said "Hello" when they passed us instead of "Ni hao."
When we got to the end of the trail there was a native village (Truku). They had set up some stalls selling tea, food, and crafts. We walked beyond that point and down to the small river to throw some rocks and eat a snack.
Here, you can see some of their stalls.
We then turned around and headed back.
We knew we were supposed to catch a bus here on this bridge, but when one never came the way we wanted to head (toward home), we decided to hop on one headed the other direction and then transfer at the next stop, which was supposed to be busier.
Bad idea. Here is where the hotel owner's advice would have been nice to have heard. Due to the big earthquake here a week ago (and probably due to typhoons from the earlier typhoon season), the road into the park was basically closed. It opened up every 2 hours for 10 minutes. So once we were through the gate, we were stuck on the bus for 2 hours. Also, it was the last bus so we couldn't hop off it and hike around jumping on another when we felt like it. Yikes. So we rode the bus for about an hour and a half until it got to its stopping point at the top. There, we got off and knew we had about half an hour to kill. The kids and Ted grabbed sausages on sticks and we tried to avoid the hungry dogs around.
Then, we jumped back on the bus after the driver's long smoke break and headed back down to the gate again. The road would be open again soon!
The driver stopped at a path called Swallow Grotto so we could walk it. If anything was going to make adding 2 hours to our trip worthwhile this was it. The trail was a gorgeous little walk that took about 20 minutes. We were in the heart of the gorge with a rushing river beneath us, birds flying all around us in and out of caves, and we passed through tunnels ourselves. I wasn't at all thinking of that earthquake. Or the fact that I had left my purse on the bus because we hadn't understood that we would be walking this part and meeting the bus driver up the road.
We did not cross this suspension bridge thank goodness. Oh no, we'll do another one tomorrow. Yikes.
The kids were a little restless on the back of the tour bus.
Here is the part that shut the roads down.
Eventually, we made it through the gate and got off the bus to walk to the 7-11. We picked up some more snacks (since we had missed dinner) and Taiwan Beers before calling our hosts to come pick us up. After a few minutes, the van arrived and we drove back along those narrow roads a few minutes to our hotel, which is actually a bed and breakfast.
That night, we saw giant millipedes, centipedes, beetles, slugs, and snails outside. They were huge. I think there are some pictures tomorrow.
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