But, extruded-jesus peanut butter flapjacks, batman, what a show. What a frolic with the beasts of the road it was to survive the tunnels of the cliff section. Through tunnels fit for 1.5 vehicles, we aimed to fit three. Monster gravel trucks that take up more than their share of the road at irrational speeds ("green giants", herein) and tour buses and scooters and cars and us - all squeezed onto a road unfit for all, especially all at once. It was, seldom, fun in the tunnels but we made it there and back via the expedient Taiwan train system to Hualien.
Alive, tanned and totally pumped and rewarded by the views and the loneliness of the road made for a wonderful trip. Well, the non-tunnel sections that is. Weaving in and out of tunnels along the way, we met with 'the perfect ride' stages and 'horrid ride' stages. Where the road left the interior of the mountains and hugged the cliff, pirouetted down the river valleys and climbed back up, the way was perfectly perfect - 'the perfect ride'. A hard ride, astounding views north and south (and up and down the cliff face) but the road was often empty, and we had solitude for the most part. Until the next tunnel....the traffic always seemd to crowd us in those damned tunnels!! The tunnels, aged carvings out of the mountainsides, built for vehicles in the 50's now shunt vehicles without remorse. This, the tunnel portion(s) is 'the horrid ride'. I guess there is a viable reason why bikes are not allowed....but, c'mon.....everything is not allowed in Taiwan, so we took this with a grain of salt. Should have taken it with a dose of reality.
Ah well....it all started so innocently.
Us at a lookout along the coastal highway, appraching the main Chingshui cliff section.
We left home prepared for camping along the coast in Heping so, loaded with our tent, stove, sleeping bags, food, water and all the required fare for a night on the beach we set off early in the morning. I had just replaced my bike computer (a giant, and I mean significantly larger than the universe 'giant' F-you! to the f***er who stole my first one....I really mean it) and we were both eager to test out more distances, and have the pleasure of knowing the details of the ride. Small pleasure, but in a scientific way it is a nice 'measure' of our pleasure!
Anywho, we set out, hit the road and weaved our way through Hualien city to the outskirts of town where the bananas grow, the tubers are for sale on the side of the road and the world turns slowly from cosmopolitan city with a rough edge into one from generations past. Stopping for a break, and to buy some bananas from the side of the road, we felt good. The day was beaming with clear skies and sunshine. .
Us. Me eating banana.
Excited to get past the turn off that would take us to new territory, and the famed ChingShui Cliffs, we dared not doddle. A quick banana break (and, yes, we stopped at a 7-11 for a drink, nothing like some 7-11 O-J to kick start a ride!) and we were off to the races (by races I mean a slow plod...).
Crystal on the road, before the turnoff to new ground. On the right, straight to Taroko, a previous bike trip, and right to those three towns (of which Heping is a small village in the middle...between Chongde and Nan-ao).
The Chingshui cliff section is the impenetrable geological fortress that made east coast habitation and development so arduous in years past. They have since been solved by tunnels and amazingly cut roads into the side of the mountain. Engineered precisely to look like it simply couldnt work...yet it does. The road exists and offers stunning views. Recently more tunnels have been added as landslides, typhoons and rockfall continuously plagued the original road. Those old cliff-hugging roads still exist, in part, but the main route through the ChingShui cliff is almost 1/2 through tunnel now. We tried to take the old road at most points, but to no avail - they were bad at times, but at most other times they just were not there! Washed away by the whip of time and the force of nature. Other times they were so strewn with rockfall that to bike them would be nothing short of torture for our tires and give us flats. I dont like flats. I really, really dont like flats. So, we stayed mostly to the main road and that meant going through the tunnels. With the most massive entities that Taiwan can put on the road. More later.
These are from two separate rivers that both are famous for producing the rose stones. On the left there are two small figures in the middle of the river that are searching, and on the right a close up of what I can only imagine to be a father and son inspecting a certain rock. Is it a rose stone?
We stopped for lunch on the Taroko bridge, sat in the sun and watched the river below. Below us, an father and son scanned the vast river plain and the gushing river itself, vacating the mountains above it of the left over water from the recent typhoon, searching for rose stones. A search that can bring in good money, but the odds are so stacked against you. Them. Post typhoon pickings can be good for these cobble to boulder sized trophies, and if a family can grab a few, clean them and polish them and sell them in the market they can get good money (and the buyer gets a beautiful, sometimes stunningly life-like pictures within them of nature, trees, valleys....). As we tucked away our lunches and headed back to the road, a father an son traced the river looking for a single rock that might get them some money.
We stopped for lunch on the Taroko bridge, sat in the sun and watched the river below. Below us, an father and son scanned the vast river plain and the gushing river itself, vacating the mountains above it of the left over water from the recent typhoon, searching for rose stones. A search that can bring in good money, but the odds are so stacked against you. Them. Post typhoon pickings can be good for these cobble to boulder sized trophies, and if a family can grab a few, clean them and polish them and sell them in the market they can get good money (and the buyer gets a beautiful, sometimes stunningly life-like pictures within them of nature, trees, valleys....). As we tucked away our lunches and headed back to the road, a father an son traced the river looking for a single rock that might get them some money.
Lunch! Crystal showing off our regular biking fare and the both of us trying to take a self portrait but messing it up....three times in a row. So, we get to post the best of the worst.
Back on the road, we made it along the upward climb (yes, unlike those dastardly downhill climbs....) and approached what we had been eagerly anticipating - the ChingShui Cliffs.
Forced to pretend we cant read, once again, we try to take the now closed cliff section of the road to avoid yet another tunnel. However, around the bend on the left picture is a dead end. Crystal, on the right, displays our feelings...one more tunnel.
The Chingshui Cliffs, looking north on the right and looking south on the right.
Trevor on the left, pushing north as we leave the mostly tunnel section and break back out into the clear glorious cliffside road. Along the way we passed the stoic battle against the powers of nature in action. Here workers clamber about on the cliff face to build erosion walls, drill netting and supports for concrete along sections that are prone to rockfalls. All this effort is continuous....every season, evey year, people work to hold back nature for just one more day. Then the typhoons, the rains, the winds, the earthquakes and the regular battering from the ocean take their toll. Then they start again.
Crystal approaching as a Green Giant blasts its way past us and into the first tunnel. If only we knew here what we were about to encounter in those bastard tunnels!
Long story short(er) - Taiwan is an island, but really nothing more than a mountain chain that rises out of the ocean. I can't guess at how much lies below the ocean surface, but from the ocean it goes upwards of 4000masl at the highest points and averages around 3000masl for the remainder of the mightiest mountains. It really is a set of mountains plunked into the ocean....driven up from its depths, more aptly said. The transition from flat ground (think Calgary) to the foothills (think Cochrane and outer Canmore) to the lofty heights of the tallest peaks (take your pick...Yoho, Jasper, Banff, endless places untraveled within Canada and the world) is not typical here. Well, it is I suppose, but it all happens under the water. What would be foothills are submerged. What you get on the island itself, the part that is above water is simply the ocean lapping up beside the side of a towering mountain chain. So, it is like sea level is halfway up the mountain. Well, it is exactly that. And this means that you go from ocean surface to cliff in many places, with no slow transition. There are some places that have developed a slight terrace, but not here.
Rubble road, on the left, epic views on the right. The left picture is one of the decomissioned roads that are, at best, impassable. On foot it would be a suitable road to take, but on a bike...no chance. Unless we had a plow in front of us!
At the ChingShui cliff section of Taiwan, it is a flat ocean on the east to almost 80 - 90 degree cliff face of Taiwan, petering out in other places to perhaps 60 degree angles as you go north or south of the main cliff section. Basically, its steep.
Geologically awesome, for sure, but the Taiwanese had to get a road through here. Where we now ponder the limitlessness of nature and time, people once had to walk by foor to get from north to south. So they had to build. Well, the Japanese did a lot of it whilst they occupied before and during the second world war. They were burdened by needs of the people, and the needs of moving their army south to "control the natives" as they so proudly, at the time, announced. What they accomplished is rather remarkable, a swerving network of tunnels, cliff hugging roadways and erosion control barriers. It is a remarkable sight - one that our pictures will do absolutely no justice to. The technological limitations of the time required that most of the road was built mostly by digging into the side of the cliff enough so that people could walk along it. Then it developed into a more traversable route as the road got larger (dug deeper into the side of the mountain) and through time it just kept, piece by piece, increasing in efficiency. Now, the Taiwanese government - due to very realistic issues of landslides, rockfalls, the cliff crumbling from underneath the road, and the damage by typhoons - has started to make tunnels for the most dangerous parts. This is a total necessity for transportation and safety, but an utter loss of picturesque scenery. So, while a large portion of the cliff road is not within tunnels, a large portion is still out of tunnels and hugging precarious cliffs, while the old road remains and is passable (on bike or foot) at times.
More scenic views of our cliffy sojourn. On the left is the stretched out section of the old road, which is where I stand, on the right, giving scale to some of the rocks that fill the now-defunct road.
The ride itself was rather smooth, the scenery awesome and the heat killer and the general mood of the road very welcoming. But....as mentioned earlier....the tunnels. Those bastards. Each time we had to enter a tunnel (each one politely stating that bikes were not allowed) it became a fight with time, trucks and green-giants from hell.
We would try to time it so that any traffic driving our way was past us, wait for a break, then charge our way into the tunnel hoping to make it to the other end before we had to be passed from behind. Never quite worked out. We were forced to walk sections, stop biking and cringe up to the side to let the green giants pass and dodge oncoming cars that were passing buses (yes, in Taiwan it is accepted as 'safe' to pass at high speed inside a tunnel, on a curve....freaks!).
The tunnels were hell. Each time we would exit, we would recalibrate....take a drink and prepare for the next. Then the next. Then the next. Some were pleasantly short.....two were dauntingly long. They just kept going! But, alas, we finally made it through the last tunnel and were safe and had all our body parts and were able to hit the road in normal riding mode. The green giants still passed us, but it no longer mattered. They had the whole road to work with, not a 2 car width dark tunnel.
Crystal walks among the rubble on one of the closed sections of the old road. Left to nature, this particular stetch probably doesnt have much time left. To the left of this picture is a precarious drop into the ocean, to the right as you can somewhat make out the rest of the cliff face.
Forced to pretend we cant read, once again, we try to take the now closed cliff section of the road to avoid yet another tunnel. However, around the bend on the left picture is a dead end. Crystal, on the right, displays our feelings...one more tunnel.
The Chingshui Cliffs, looking north on the right and looking south on the right.
Trevor on the left, pushing north as we leave the mostly tunnel section and break back out into the clear glorious cliffside road. Along the way we passed the stoic battle against the powers of nature in action. Here workers clamber about on the cliff face to build erosion walls, drill netting and supports for concrete along sections that are prone to rockfalls. All this effort is continuous....every season, evey year, people work to hold back nature for just one more day. Then the typhoons, the rains, the winds, the earthquakes and the regular battering from the ocean take their toll. Then they start again.
We made it to Heping in rather good time, found a small shop to grab some water and rested. Then to the train station, deciding that we didn't want to bike that route back again (it was gorgeous...so bloody gorgeous....but dangerous....so bloody dangerous) and that there was no way we could get a train home and camp. Or, better said, there was no way we could camp there the night and get a train home the next day. It was camp and bike back or take a train now and call it a day trip. Train it was. Bikes on the train, us on the seats, the fatigue set in. Zonked! We were zonked! Back to Hualien station, off the train and biked our way back to our apartment.
Mail box, Taiwan style.
Arrived in, almost, Heping. The village proper was another km or so down the road but this is what we needed. A place to stop, water, and a friendly reminder from the shop owner that rain was coming. Later on we came to this sight, which can only be described as the best fate any Karaoke bars can come to - being closed. This place will no longer have to hear the wretched sounds of Taiwanese singing, ever again. What a lucky building!
Homeward bound...
Mail box, Taiwan style.
Arrived in, almost, Heping. The village proper was another km or so down the road but this is what we needed. A place to stop, water, and a friendly reminder from the shop owner that rain was coming. Later on we came to this sight, which can only be described as the best fate any Karaoke bars can come to - being closed. This place will no longer have to hear the wretched sounds of Taiwanese singing, ever again. What a lucky building!
This trip left us in a really festive mood as this was a trip - a section of road - that we really wanted to bike for a long time. Such a rich history, such a demonic thrill to traverese.
Festive that we did it, congratulatory that we succeeded, but ever so glad that we were done with the tunnels.
And the green giants. Those beasts of the road.
Homeward bound...
