I think I keep losing focus on my goal for this trip... I was thinking I could stick it out in the rain... I would have missed some great scenery along the way.
Day 6 started out in exactly the same fashion as Day 5: the rising sun, the rushing water, and the singing birds within the deep canyons of Taroko Gorge coaxed my eyes open. This time, instead of waiting around the pay the campsite fee, I was packed up and on the road by 7:00 AM.
[Just a side note- in The Lonely Planet: Taiwan, it says camping at Holiou Campsite is free. The signs at the campsite itself also say that it's "free" to camp there, but that there is also a $200 maintenance fee. Again, I recommend leaving before 8:00 if you want to skip the bill.]
Before I said my goodbyes to Taroko National Park, there was still one trail that I hadn't gotten to yet. The Shakadang Trail, which is very close to the park entrance, follows the Shakadang River into the mountains and away from the Central Cross-Island Highway. It is suggested that it will take 1 hour to reach the end, so give yourself 2 hours round-trip.
The trail is very flat and wide, making it safe and accessible for all walks of life, including people with canes, flip-flops, and high heels. It's even flat enough to drive a scooter on. Along the trail, I came across some Atayal people scootering up and down the trail. The Atayal people have been living in Taroko for a long time, although their numbers have shrunk since the Japanese tried to force them out in 1914. There is a small village along the Shakadang Trail, and the Atayal have little booths set up to get their slice of the tourism industry.
It was on the Shakadang Trail on that lovely morning that I decided Taroko Gorge was my favorite place in Taiwan. I was staring down at a small pool of water that was so blue that I half thought the river's source was a bottle of Listerine. The collection of 2-story high rocks scattered throughout the river are mostly limestone, and consequently gives the water its cool, inviting, blue-green hue. Although the weather was starting to warm up, and I knew I had a head start going down the trail, I was too scared to swim (I think it was the Atayal who scared me).
I'm right in the middle of this picture!
On my back toward the trail-head, I started seeing more and more people walking in my direction. I was glad that I got to experience the first half of the trail peacefully. It actually seemed like the more people I saw, the cloudier it got, because by the time I could see the highway, it had started to drizzle. By the time I got back to my scooter, it had started to rain.
It rained the entire 40 minute drive from Taroko to downtown Hualien, and continued to rain as I checked my email in the public library and did some laundry at a laundromat. As I waited, I kept going back and forth between deciding whether to continue on south towards Taitung in the rain, or spend the night at a hostel in Hualien. At this point it was only 11:00 AM, so to call it quits would be to waste almost an entire day staying stationary (there's not really anything to do in Hualien, rain or shine).
Ultimately I decided try my luck with the weather. I had a tent and didn't want to pay for a place to sleep. I hopped on my scooter and drove south to look for Highway 11.
South of Hualien, there are actually two highways to choose from. Highway 11 is between a small mountain chain and the beach, which is also the location for a lot of Taiwan's East Coast National Scenic Area. Running directly parallel, but on the other side of the mountains is Highway 9, situated between two strips of mountains and is home to the East Rift Valley. So it goes beach, Highway 11, mountains, Highway 11, mountains. This might be more clear looking at a map.
Anyway, my plan was to go down Highway 11 along the coast, but somewhere in the rain, I missed the turn at the fork and ended up on Highway 9. If you look carefully at the maroon-colored path on my map, you'll see that after 15 km of travel on Highway 9, I started to wonder why I couldn't see the ocean to my immediate left. Realizing that I was in a valley between two mountains, I turned around and cursed at myself all the way back past the Highway 11-Highway 9 split, to the hostel in Hualien.
The opening quote of this post is from my journal and was written in the hostel in Hualien. I had started to get a really macho survivor-man attitude, and for some reason decided that it was more bad-ass to drive somewhere in the rain, set up a tent in the rain, sleep in the rain, and miss out on some sights because of the rain. But back in Hualien, I had the rest of the afternoon and evening to remind myself that I wasn't in a race. I was on vacation.
So in the end, I'm glad that I took made the wrong turn onto Highway 9, because the last line in my journal for Day 6 reads: It's really pouring now.
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