Suited and booted

After finding the rather great hiking blog, Pashan, we were inspired to go and trek pastures new around Wulai. It’s Labour Day weekend here, and the weather has just been impeccable for the whole time, so no excuses could be found not to strap on the boots and get motoring.

Indian Jones-style bridges.

Abe illustrates his bike-handling skills.

The hike was well graded, and punctuated by groups of improbably old Taiwanese hikers coming the other way. It’s a sad fact, but hikers that we bump into tend to be old, and complain that the youth today are not interested in Hiking. Although I usually take these types of comments with a grain of salt (‘in my day…’), I have to say I agree. However, I do hold out hope that in the grand rollercoaster of Taiwanese trends, hiking will follow folding bikes in rising popularity – perhaps it will be some local tech GPS gadget that kicks it off – who knows.

After reading the Pashan article, detailing the Sanxia-Wulai Trail, we did manage to get one minor detail wrong… the starting point. As a result, the fantsatic diving pools ‘in the first third of the trail’ were not quite where we expected them to be, but no matter; we’ll be back soon to do it properly. Here is a map of the starting point / ending point:

View Wulai – Sanxia Hike in a larger map

Team Taipei

Air conditioning for whom?

After the hike, we headed straight for the smoked chicken roadside restaurant, and devoured all manner of vegetables and delicious bird. It then did not take an enormous amount of persuasion from Tasha to head to Gonguan and rather a special chocolate shop, where we each ordered a brownie large enough for 12 people. Food coma. Bed.

Link to my Flickr set for Wulai-Sanxia