Of Mountains, Cliffs and Gorges

Nature Lovers

Before leaving for Taipei, my car mechanic told me that Taipei is boring ; it's just a plain Jane and there's nothing really much to see. After coming home last evening, another friend asked us about the trip. She heard that Taipei has nothing to offer.

When our plane hit the airport and after cruising through the rather old city which we felt needed refurbishment, I told myself perhaps the mechanic was right ... what's there to do here?

The city is definitely bigger than Kuala Lumpur and is more widespread but the MRT is super efficient and is a time saver in city travels. But my clever sister took pains to study some must see spots and made everyone's opinion including mine at the onset irrelevant.

Lou, Mee Sing and Celine ( all of my sisiter's family) took leave from work and school and in a rented MPV took us up the mountains to the very renown Taroko National Park. Even many of the locals have not seen the place. We are blessed for such an opportunity to see nature at its helm and original state. That made dad's visit complete because geology is the love of his heart and the stones brought light and stars to his eyes.

A friend also advised Mee Sing that perhaps we should take the train to Hualien and from there to drive up to Taroko park. She related that the journey along Suhua Highway for 119 km was not really easy because we had to cruise between the cliffs, mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Together with Lou, they decided that the journey itself would give us views, insights, and an experience that cannot be gotten from the train ride. So the arduous journey took place.

We saw many engineering feats as we ploughed through tunnels and Kong Kong kept commenting on the hardships that the locals must have gone through while building the highway as tunnels could stretch for more than 10 km at one go and he jokingly said that he would have reached Parit Jawa from Muar town.
Series of earthquakes and typhoons kept the Taiwan Government hot on their heels to maintain the coastal road and rockfalls are not uncommon here too.





















Before reaching Taroko, we witnessed the Cing Shui cliffs , one of Taiwan's 8 wonders ; 21 km between the town of Heren and Congde .
The cliffs are formed as a result of the collision of 2 massive plates and their subsequent respective ascents and subductions resulted in the formation along the Suhua coastline.












At a look out point, we gazed at the the Pacific Ocean in awe...so blue and far in the horizon.

After 3 hours on the Suhua highway, we stopped at a rest area to have a simple meal but to our astonishment the meal was very palatable for Por Por and she ate...really ate. That meal kept her so full that she had very little for dinner at Hualien. Hooray for the meal.




Dad commented that Celine is sporty and not a softie. She loves trees and missed climbing them. When she found them she climbed without effort and took a rest later on a piece of rock...gneiss? green schist ? Ha, geography teacher I am!








Loads of buses were already here ready to visit the Taroko Park in great anticipation.

The lady at the rest area told us that we must stop at the trail of the 9 Turns @ 1.9km and enjoy the popular marble gorges, potholes, spurs and cliffs.

The shots above speak for themselves. Beautiful and majestic. All geologists must visit Taiwan to study her geography and all understanding subsequently stored. It was indeed a live experience that I will never ever forget.



On the way out of the area, we saw this feature... two cliffs almost touching one another. We laughed when Kong kept insisting that a dynamite tore them apart... he did not think it was platonic movement.

See what an old bridge stood on.

This spot is also known as the Swallow Grotto...the place to harvest bird's nest ; we were wondering how they harvest them among the holes formed in the cliffs.

We were fortunate to see the newly built bridge beside the old one on the right.

A family photo for the album. I must admit once again that this was an experience out of the world. To make a trip like this again with the old folks will not be easy again. Kong Kong ranted that he was very glad he had the chance to see nature so closely and I know these memories will be etched forever. It was indeed very fortunate that they took the walking and travelling so well ; with no fuss.

On the way down to Hualien we stopped at Tien Hsing for nature's call and bought a giant size pear from this local at NT200. It's a huge sum but never mind la..gave that local a treat.








This representation of one of the local tribes ended the day trip up at Taroko National Park as we made our way to Hualien for the night's rest.

A wonderful trip ; forever etched in our memories