Him and Her still on the road.: July 2010

Hualien : After such a great day in the Taroko Gorge we decided to have a look at other sections of the Gorge we missed on our first visit. It was even hotter and using a scooter to wind our way up into the gorge was a good idea. This time we caught the tail end of a rock fall clearing up session and the road was opened for this section once every hour. The highlight of this visit was the Janshen trail. A rough and hardly used path West of Tiansiang, we walked as far as the main suspension bridge and some great views into two smaller Gorges. Another Great day, the Taroko Gorge is truly awesome. We also took ourselves up the coast to the Cingshui Cliffs.

The road to the cliffs is quite dangerous as many South bound lorries us it and have no regard for anyone else on the road, it get especially dodgy when you are in one of the many tunnels.
Anyway we made it to a town called Heren and had some superb views of the Cliffs, some as high as 1 km!

I think the pictures can do a better job than any narrative ( probably a few too many from the gorge ).

Rock clearing after a fall,

Janshen trail Taroko Gorge

Linda on the suspension bridge at the Janshen Trail.

Janshen Trail

Janshen trail.

Timer shot of Him and Her on the Janshen Trail Taroko Gorge.

Taroko Gorge II

Cingshui Cliffs near Hualien, East Coast Taiwan.

Cingshui Cliffs

Our mode of transport.

Cingshui Cliffs.

End of Blog, next blog will be Taipei again and more national parks.

Taroko Gorge....... FANTASTIC... We read about how good the Taroko Gorge was but it surpassed all expectations. At around 18km long and many walking trails we set off on a day trip to take in the main 5 sites along the 18km. The first trail was Shakadang 4km section up into one of the side Gorges. The warning sign at the start of the trail told us to be careful about the Killer Bees and Poisonous snakes that lived there.. All we saw were spiders and loads of butterflies. Our next walk was at the Eternal springs shrine a bit further into the Taroko Gorge. Followed by the Swallow grotto where the gorge starts to get very deep.

The highlight of the Gorge is the nine turns trail but as we approached it was shut off due to a rock fall on the previous day.. Luckily we could access this trail from the other end and could walk back to within 100mts of the start so we didn't miss anything. We had to wear hard hats as the rock falls are frequent. Seeing the size of the rock fall boulders I am not sure what good a hat would have been.. We also managed two more smaller trails in the main Gorge. What a great day this was. Superb scenery awesome geology and great weather.. 10/10 one of the best days so far and without doubt the best Gorge, it knocks the Tiger Leaping Gorge for six. And there was no admission fee ...... Taiwan takes the view that Natural scenery is there for everyone to enjoy not just those who can afford it ( unlike China ! ). So a big thumbs up again for Taiwan...