Kenting National Park: Museum of Marine Biology

This has been in the books for a while, but nature and time were against us from the beginning. First, typhoon damage to the train tracks closed the lines basically between us and the south. There were ways to get around the damaged parts, but it was too time consuming and would not allow us to actually get to the park and back (and allow for any quality time at the park or museum) in a simple weekend. Then, when the lines were fixed and trains were passing by in perfect fashion, time was the kicker...

Orchids growing their little epiphytic hearts out along the walkway near our motel. Such astounding diversity for one tiny little island...

But, this weekend, we made it. Train-Bus-Scooter-Bus-Train-*switch lines* - Train. There and back, now home safe and saturated with Taiwanese and global biological knowledge. We even snuck in a bit of time on the oceanside, walking along the beach and perusing the local nuclear plant (from a distance...) and got to have a chilled evening listening to another guy from Ontario belot out Elliott Brood tunes. All in all, an educational and relaxing weekend. And we managed a tan, despite being inside the museum for the better part of the day. The sun sneaks in, kisses, then leaves.

Waiting for the train with the conductors about to switch off. Crystal waits, I snap a photo, they hopefully are discussing train safety and professional matters that will help keep us alive on the tracks.

So...after arriving in the National Park, snatching a place to crash and a meal, we took to our rented scooter and headed north to the Marine Biology Museum.

The museum itself is rather new, and rather cool. It is more like a showcase of the living biota that we have around the world with a lot....a lot...of live animals. Some pretty neat ways of displaying the shows, too. Some are traditional aquarium-style tanks, while others have built in glass tunnels allowing you to walk under the fish, baluga whale, skates, sharks and eels, while another is like a massive television set containing all the colourful life of the ocean....and a ghastly huge whale shark. Walking under those critters, seeing them swim above you, was just simply breathtaking. It may be a common aquarium trick, but its one we had never seen before and it was a moving experience. It gives a total new perspective and you really get to see the movement, the size...jesus frak the size of some of the rays, sharks, and the like...and the majesty of what has evolved on this planet. A job well done, a biological story well told, despite our misgivings of aquarium-morality itself.

There is a section focusing on global oceans and another focusing on Taiwans oceans and waterways. The line is fine...Taiwan is part of the world, no less...but it doesnt detract from the message or the beauty and down and dirty educational aspect of it. I shant wax poetic about the individual things we saw - the Whale Shark, though, worth noting for the surprise and the size - but after spending some time below the waters of Taiwan and checking out the coral species and the fish we kinda thought we had seen what Taiwan had to offer. Apparently not. So much more than can be seen in a few afternoons with snorkel gear, some tiny, some massive. There was also a fair amount of time and space given to environmental aspects, fish farming concerns and evolution itself. Not just a show and tell, but much, much more.

Trevor at the first display of Taiwan's coral habitat. So many fishies, so much diversity....so peaceful to watch.

More aquarium pictures; on the left is the offshore environment, on the right is the scariest things that I can imagine.

On the left is the underwater tunnel that allows you to walk under the ocean life. the sizes really become apparent when you see them from below, cm's from your face. On the right is a yet unknown species (a little help, anyone?) that we shall call Massivus uglyus for obvious reasons. The coolest part is that there were cleaner fish symbionts that would flicker in and out of its mouth as it sat there; them getting a free meal, this dude/dudette getting a nice visit with the dentist. When the cleaning was done, the fish would simply cough out the cleaners and close its mouth...so huge, so gentle.

Angle Fish on the left and a beautiful, tender, gorgeous, subtle, elaborate, calming, perfect nudibranch on the right.

Crystal pondering the starfish of Taiwan on the left, Trevor dropping in for an impromptu phot op on the right.

The big tank ("...the killer whale tank...") with the epic diversity of Taiwan and the meta-epic whale shark. On the right, Crystal poses by her first ever whale sighting. I didnt have the heart to tell her the truth.....she thought it was just taking abreak in mid air (ok...im kidding...). Neat waterfall, though!

The diversity, the grandiose reality of our biological world...humbling. Hydrogen and 15 billion years, to steal from Carl Sagan.

After the museum we made it back to the village/town of Kenting and hit the town for dinner, some drinks and a hance to sit back and watch waves crash and the night creep up on us. Then a group of guitar clad, bongo toting foreigners came to the same patio. We listened for a bit then, dead tired and perhaps a drink or three too many inside of us, decided to call it a night.

Us, at dinner, taking a nice family portrait. So hot during the day, so cold at night!

At 9:30pm.

We did a double take at that time. It felt like it was 12:30, or later. So, we grabbed a snack (peanuts and dried guava...and desite Crystal liking that horse-intestine tasting equivalent, dried guava is a total waste of time. Wretched stuff.) and watched CNN..its all there is... . Until we saw that Larry King was asking Snoop Dog for political opinions. How quickly one turns off a television. CNN....dipping beyond the stupid level once again (but not quite as far as FOX...that would take and ALVIN submersible so sink that low).

Morning, breakfast, coffee, beach walk, bought a pair of shorts, returned scooter, took train (a 1950 version that was..um...awsome!), switched trains, took another train, got dinner in YuLi, and scootered home. Made bread, made cookies (to give to people to apologize for deciding to quit and move back to the city), unpacked and ... after typing this last line ... will go to sleep

Nuclear plant by the most populated beack on the island, and lunch hot-pot on the right.

Onions. We were in onion county, and these onion-depots lined the main roadway. Fields of them, warehouses of them, all delicious!

Trevors feet at the back of the old-style train (which boasts the safety level of...ok...no safety at all actually. See that yellow chain? Yup, that was it. It was metal, at least.). Nice to sit in the back, with the open air and be alone with the mountains as they wizzed by.

Monday, and it starts all over again!

Check me out..the coolest ocean critters, Taiwan style! I (Trevor) loved teaching this part of the biology course...they are stunningly awsome and the kids totally love them...and to see them, for the first time in my life, in the flesh....wow. From a pivitol ppt presentation and a dream, to reality, standing on the shores of the Pacific Ocean glaring down an honest specimen plunked from the waters. They are so cool...so much smaller than I imagined, too.

And some eels for you to ponder...

And a short ride on the train as we clickity-clank our way home....

Walk the Walk: Chishang to Wulu

Wulu, a little gathering of two hotels, two rice and noodle shops, a police station and a hole lot of nature is nestled high up along the Southern Cross Island Highway. A highway by Taiwan standards, a backroad by Canada standards. The road cuts East/West across the southern section of the Central Mountains, weaving and winding and undulating upwards from just about sea level to about 9oo masl. This is a road we have ventured along before - twice by scooter, once by bicycle - and this time we decided to give it a go on foot.

Our scooter parked in front of the local police station. We de-scootered and took to the pavement up the gorge to the hotsprings, birds and butterflies of Wulu

So, we drove our scooter to the beginning of the road, dropped it off outside the police station, locked it up, and set out on foot. It is 22km from this police station to the village of Wulu, up all the way, though gradual and absolutely wonderfully beautiful. It is actuall called the Wulu Gorge, as it is certainly a gorge scoured out by millions of years of weathering and erosion leaving steep walls and precarious cliffs along the entire road. It is a stunning walk, and the 6 hours up and 4.5 hours down were spent - mostly...there were moments of heat drenched tiredeness - in awe of the birds, snakes, butterflies, mountains, rock cuts, river bends, cliffs and macaques. Too much to look at...!



So, we set off early in the morning, walking up and up. Right away we ran into a snake. A big, brown, scaley, big, snake..still cannot identify it, but the search is on.

[Edit: I asked the naturalist at one of my schools and it appears that it is the Chinese Cobra, highly venemous. It is a species that frequents these areas, both high and low elevations and has distinctivent markings along its back and neck. We will keep looking into it, but that is where we sstand now. To add, we saw another of these by our house last night (killed by the locals, which they do with deadly snakes whenever they see one...cant have them lurking in the rice fields) and Crystal also saw another Bamboo Viper while jogging. Taiwan is noted for its poisonous snakes, but it is one thing to 'know' abut them, and another to live with them and see them on a daily basis! ]


[Edit 2: Crystal saw another Bamboo Viper (that makes 2 now) whilst walking, dead. So we are definitely in "snake season" as the warmer weather brings them out from their wintery slumber in the forest...beware!]


Now that we are more familiar with the diverse snake habits - and attempting to correlate these habits to their thoughts, or intentions at least! - this one was beaming a strong "Yeah, im here. Try to do something about it.". Not afraid at all. Once we moved closer to it, ready to stare in disbelief (the biggest one we have seen in Taiwan as of yet!) for a good long time, it decided to retreat, slowly. Heart pounding, happy and tense at the same time, we kept on walking...



Ok, so the details are not necessary...we walked...you know how that works....and we saw so much wildlife and got immersed in the ever changing rock strata...it is not worth recounting every butterfly and every monkey, so ill leave it at 'we saw a whack of cool wildlife and took a whack of pictures along the way". Hao le.

Formosan Blue Magpie; questionable as to its endangered status, but it is a rarely seen and legally protected species. This is one of the best places on the island to see it.

Just before Wulu itself is a small village of "Get off the horse"...XiaMa. Apparently in the years of Post-Japanese occupation people would take a breather here because the food they could smell cooking was so welcoming. however, today it is but a dusty little shop and village that really attracts nobody. It is awsome in terms of scenery, the view of the gorge, and the people (especially the kids who are ever fascinated to see foreigners) are welcoming and friendly, but there is little reason to linger. On we go...

Crystal walking up the gorge, the mountains in the distance are the beginning of the real gorge...in all its gorgeousness. Get it? Gorge. Gorgeousness? I hear you laughing....

Then, we arrive. Legs sore, we get to the hotel (the only gig there is there, and there is really no place to camp and even if there was we certainly didnt have all our gear with us, so....hotel it is). Drop off our stuff, brew ourselves some java, then hit the road again. Fuurther up the road - this is the reason we came - is one of Taiwans most beautiful hotsprings. There are hotsprign pools directed straight into the hotel, there are little natural pools by the side of the road, and the main rive itself has steaming hot water spouting out along its banks at random intervals. So...look for the orange sediment that indicated the geothermal liquid, and jump in. Check the temperature, first, as there are some places here where people coe mto boil eggs. It trickles out of the planet at the boiling point. so be careful. We spent some time down by the river, then hit up a little roadside pool to bask in the warmer of the two waters. We killed a good hour here, then made it back to the hotel for dinner. A nice evening stroll around the hotel, across the bridge and a short search for fireflies (during which crystal saw a shooting star) and an early night followed.

In the morning we woke, at, filled up with coffee and hot the forest for a brief bout of birdwatching (more caterpillars than birds, though!) and then started back down. Down, down, down...

Trevor warming up his legs with a little hack in the hotel room in YuLi the night before...we skipped our train this night (unsure if we could find a place to stay in the humble and small ChihShang - our trailhead to the trek). We also missed our train in the morning, so we ended up taking our scooter....which was, in the end, a better scenario. All worked out well!

Yet another beautiful butterfly (so big!) and the road ahead of us...

Trevor on the road, feeling the heat. We saw a few snakeskins along the way, this one was pefectly in one piece (until I tried to extract if from the rock face...then it broke). The whole snake was perfectly represented, its mouth, scale types (belly and back) and even the eyes...spectacular!

Crystal along the road, and the view that was ours the whole way up. River bottom to mountain tops; these mountains are near the beginning, and the ones near Wulu itself increase in their size and angle (so many landslides in that region, too).

Lizard, motionless on tree. Us, moving through tunnel.

The view, again (the river goes from perhaps 10m wide in the gorge section to this...100-200m wide near its mouth. Quite a dramatic change in both flow dynamics and geological landscape....textbook stuff, and we love it!); Us, taking a snack break by the same section of river.

Us, with flowers that adorned the roadway for a healthy km or two; Skink trying not to be seen.

Still to be identified birds that we saw only here...both going up and returning down. Nowhere else in Taiwan have we seen these, so it will be very interesting to find out what they are and why they are, apparently, only here. Could be some neat biological/evolutionary tidbits to learn out of this mystery; Trevor by a tributary to the main river, taking a break.

Crystal, same tributary as above, also taking a well deserved rest!

Trevor lying down on the job...well, after the job was done I suppose! Left, in a natural hotspring within the river basin (lukewarm at this point as it was kinda far downstream of its source from our grumbling earth). Right, waiting patiently at night for either meteors or fireflies to show themselves. Crystal saw one meteor, neither of us saw fireflies. We are still a month or two too early...but worth a try.

There is a bridge by the hotel in Wulu that allows you to walk over and above the glorious gorge. It is a stunnign view during the day, but it takes on a whole other appearance when day turns to night. Here is a 5s exposure of the bridge that we took as we sat across the river and were searching for more fireflies.

Some caterpillars that we saw along the way, in the mountains and by the river. And an ant that was either in battle with the little fella, or a case of sexual dimorphism. Not sure...but they were not getting along whatever the relationship!

Us, along the trail the next morning on our usual birdwatching stint; Trevor taking a rare opportunity get close and personal and hold on to a flower as an oblivious butterfly drains out its meagre nectar supplies. It is a feverish attempt to get as much as they can as soon as they can, and to watch this happening in your own hand is pretty awsome.

Birds, insects and more birds and more insects....so many, so many. So diverse, this here chunk of sandstone, marble and basalt.

A flower that grows along the side of the road at higher elevations. We were not able to suss out the main pollinator of this flamboyant beast, but im sure it would be a bigger insect rather than a smaller one? Something to keep tabs on...

Birds...again. And the view walking back down. Apparently (we found out afterwards) the background haze is not pollution (that was known...it simply doesnt get like that around here due to pollution...humidity, yes..pollution...no!) but a sandstorm from mainland China!! What a weird feeling...to be walking within a sedimentary deposit-to-be from a country across the straight. This planet is connected, in so many ways. So many...


Small village (XiaMa) and the homeward stretch...one hour to go....

Birds. Biggify this one. Totally cool colouration.

We grabbed some HotPot in Yuli for dinner, and made it home with enough time to clean up a little bit (Crystal) and to make bread (Trevor) to keep us going through the week. All around, a good weekend and another awseom dip into the biological fantasy world of Taiwan.