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.