Central-Cross and Taroko (July 2008)

My friend Lawrence and I had initially planned to ride over the Southern-Cross Highway and then up the east coast to Taroko. However, we had to change our plans at the last minute due to a typhoon hitting Taiwan a day or so before we planned to set off. As the Southern-Cross was impassable, we therefore went directly over the Central-Cross Highway. This route is usually very busy on a Sunday morning, but on this occasion it seemed that the typhoon had scared most locals away. As a result, we had the road largely to ourselves.

This landslide was the only real evidence that there had been a typhoon a day or two earlier. We were delayed for about an hour here, but after that we had no further problems.

This local man had ridden down from Hsinchu in the early hours of the morning and was suffering the effects of his early start. He'd already fallen off his bike once near Puli when he fell sleep!

At the top of Hehuanshan with Lawrence and the sleepy Taiwanese guy.

My attempt at nature photography.

A view taken from the sacred tree on the Central-Cross Highway.

More typhoon damage.

Never drink this beer. It's bloody awful!

After giving Lawrence time to recover from his hangover, we headed into the gorge for a bit of hiking. We took the Shakadang trail, which boasts fantastic places to swim all along it.

The Shakadang trail begins at this bridge.

How's this for a natural swimming pool!

Large numbers of butterflies were also visible along the trail.

In the afternoon, we rode south from Hualian along the east coast. On the way back, we stopped at this small temple just off Highway 11.

This is a view taken from the temple looking back towards Hualian across the Hualian River.

Heading back over the Central-Cross Highway, the weather remained absolutely gorgeous.