Bah!! Our grand plans of camping along the main ridgeline of Taiwan, hiking up the Guanshan trail and feasting our eyes on the rhododendrons and rocky peaks were foiled by a river. And a bridge....a bridge that was supposed to be there.
Our scooter and bags; all packed and nowhere to go! In the distance an engineers car is parked at the place where the roadway should be but immediately in front of the car is a chasm of impassable measure.
Earlier in the year a typhoon hit this area and totally flushed out the bridge, leaving behind a disconnected path from the ocean to the mountains. They worked hard...very hard...to repair a makeshift bridge and allow traffic to pass through. It was good, solid and it looked like they were just about to finish the final touches when.....the biggest rainfall of the year (non-typhoon rainfall) hits and just washes the entire thing away. Gone. Nothing left but a road with a huge gap in it. In the middle of nowhere, along windy mountainous roads, we were met with a flooded river and empty space between where we were, and where we wanted to be.
Shots of us posing by the river that washed away our plans; this river has done this many times before and the repairs at this point in the road are ongoing....an economic perpetual motion machine. Just last year we were almost stopped by the bridge damage but managed to carry our scooter over the blockade and drive through the muck and cobble. This time, no such luck. We would have needed a flying scooter, and we totally forgot ours at home.
C'est la vie...
On to our scooter....bags packed to the brim...up we went. About two hours into the drive, winding and twisting and pondering our evening tea among the misty mountains that make up the spine of Taiwan, we were stopped by the sound of machinery, trucks and one nice young worker who looked at us, looked at our scooter, looked at the road ahead and simply waved his hands to signify "no way". It wasnt a "if we drive slowly we can make it". It was a dead stop.
The End.
Torn between being angry at our luck, double checking the river to see if we could make it, laughing at our luck, double checking the river to see if we could make it, and just about every emotion one goes through when best laid plans are foiled...we turned around. Restlessly back down the mountains, to the main road and stopped.
This is a common setup in the mountains. Villagers have built tramways across difficult parts of the river and places where landslides often cut off road access. This way they can have materials sent up - food, supplies, tools, etc - and they can send down their crops and still make money while the road is out of action. It takes a team, a good lot of energy and even more time to make this work and to make it efficient, but they seem to do it well.
Loading up the basket to go up the mountains...
Now what?
Small hike. we fond a lovely little forgotten roadway to hike up that eventually led to a small little tea field nestled in the fog and mist. A nice quick walk to stretch our legs (but which required us to carry all our gear that was intended for the overnight camping trip - heaviest "afternoon walk" pack evah!) and then back on the scooter and down the mountain road.
Stopping aong the base of the tea field.
Stopping at the top! A small field of tea by Taiwan standards for sure, but a very remote and calm place to reach, especially as it was unexpected and followed such disappointment of the bridge issue. A bit of rain, not enough to drench us but enough to keep us moist. And a bit cooler.
Us, in said tea fields.
Back down to the scooter, I felt a wee bit heavier. Was I getting weaker? Hmmmm....perhaps I had a guest who was hitching a free ride down the mountain!
From tea fields we moved tomato fields. The tomato varieties in Taiwan are few, three that we have found, but are all delightfully delicious. We are never without during cherry tomato season...never!
Until the stomach started yelling, the food in our packs calling to us and we decided to give in.
Lunch. By a roadside natural hotspring. We bathed our legs in the scalding water and let the sun bathe our bodies. Then we ate our lunch. A peaceful lunch of defeat!
Lunch of water, veggies, fresh bread and...yes...tomatoes. A perfect mountain meal. Trevor sits on the steps that lead to the little spring where we soaked our (mostly unused at this point) legs.
Hot Springs. We drove to Antong Hot Springs, soaked our bones (for it was a rainy and chilly ride) and drank some nice (free) tea with the owner as we chatted about who we were, where we were from, and the basic conversations you have when you first meet somebody. Good tea - excellent, in fact - and a nice chinese lesson to boot. But when it was done, we saddled up on our scooter again and hit the same wall of indecision:
A cute little fella that we spotted as we left the hotsprings. Full of tea, totally relaxed, we headed back home...
Now what?
Hualien! The city! A far cry from the epic camping trip in the mountains we had planned, we ended up going to the city to study chinese and drink tea. Fun, but totally unexpected. We got a nice walk by the river and drank in some sunshine, got to taste a few tea varieties and snuck in a fun evening at a pub. All around good times. But what a different weekend than we had planned....wowzah!
So it goes in the mountains of Taiwan....the water rules everything and makes everything that we try to build temporary. You just have to try to get into the hills before nature grabs ahold and does its thing and halts your plans! Yakou will have to wait until next year....it will be there, but will the road. Time will tell...
This is actually us the Friday night before it all happened. Bags packed and minds full of expecctation, we stayed in a little hotel in Yuli - shaving off some 30 minutes of travel the next day of what should have been a 4+ hour scooter ride - and hit the town for dinner. Afterwards, back to the hotel and some rest...up early the next day and....you know the rest!
