Day 13 ZhuAn Estuary Wetland to Lanyang Estuary Waterbird Refuge, then Wufengqi Falls & its Catholic Church

Friday September 24^th, 2021.

The one with the Catholic Church.

After a hiatus of 5 months due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we were very excited to start walking again. Our last walk (Day 12) was at the end of April and, due to a level 3 lockdown and other restrictions including scorching heat and the odd tropical storm, we had been unable to find a time to walk.

Our last stop had been at the Timu bar at WaiAo beach on the north side of WuXi harbour. We decided that, rather than begin exactly from that spot and walk through the harbour, which is quite unremarkable except for the fact one can take ferry boats from there over to Turtle Island and, depending on the season, see schools of dolphins, we would skip a small section of the coast and begin our walk at the river mouth of the ZhuAn river.

Luckily, Henry and Marie had driven into Taipei early in the morning and were able to drive us out to the coast. We were once again joined by Ron and also welcomed Tim Greenwood.  Tim is infamous for his fancy dress costumes, but, for our walk, was quite ‘under dressed’ except for his fancy digital camera and hiking cane!

The drive out to Yilan was relatively smooth, however we did pass an accident in the Hsueshan (Snow mountain) tunnel and were glad we had chosen the right hand lane, otherwise we would have been stuck in there for a while.

Exiting the tunnel, the skies looked ominously heavy and grey as we drove past the juxtaposition of architecture that now dots the Yilan plain.  Prior to the completion of the Hsueshan tunnel, which is Taiwan’s longest tunnel stretching a length of 12.94Km from PingLin to Toucheng, in 2006, it used to take anything from two hours or more to drive from Taipei out to Yilan. The tunnel has reduced this journey down to 40 minutes (traffic permitting) and as such, a number of city folks have bought land in Yilan and built their weekend/holiday/retirement properties out there.

Taiwan’s lack of building regulations (or rather their lack of implementation) has resulted in a bizarre mishmash of old and new, dreary, and fancy, and sometimes quite outlandish abodes rise majestically from the rice paddies. It’s certainly very different from Taipei.

Just before the entrance to the riverside bike path, we passed a huge metal shrimp perched on the side of the riverbank. It seemed an odd ‘objet d’art’, but on closer inspection we saw the plaque that explained how, back in the 80’s, the village of ShiCao and the surrounding area was heavily reliant on eel farming. However, when it became increasingly difficult to export eels, the villagers converted to shrimp farming instead and this has become a huge success – hence the huge shrimp!

With our backs to WuXi harbour and the black volcanic sandy beach to our left, we headed south towards the SuAo mountain range far off in the distance. The path is paved, and for the first couple of kilometers has an irrigation trench on one side and a lovely view out to Turtle Island on the other. We were the only souls on the track and made great headway, admiring the rich vegetation all around as we went.

There were a number of sea mango trees, ( Cerbera manghas – 海檬果) with their fruit in various stages of ripening and, every now and then, a fallen one made a great ‘football’ for Ron to kick along the path.

We passed a military artillery range, which thankfully wasn’t in use, and an interesting sign detailing all types of shells and mortars. Luckily, we didn’t happen upon any ‘weapons of mass destruction’ but did comment that if the Chinese were planning to invade, then this long stretch of beach would make the ideal location.

There were various signs along the path, some advising of the dangerous bends in the road, others advising not to eat the sea mangoes. We kept encountering strangely foreshortened tourist maps, according to which, no matter how far we kept walking, it seemed we would never get any closer to our destination, so we were hoping they were wrong.

There were very few buildings on the path, but one notable one was an abandoned diving centre with an abalone farm behind it.  Initially, we weren’t sure what it was, but were able to ask a local workman about its history. He happily explained that the dive site had been illegally built on public land and the abalone farmers had moved up the coast to AoDi, leaving the buildings abandoned and, unfortunately, a bit of an eyesore.

We could still hear the claps of thunder from the mountains as we continued our way along the winding path. Every now and then, we would pass an area littered with local tombs/graves and meandering paths which had been cut through the undergrowth to allow access for tomb sweeping etc.

With the rain starting to fall, we decided to walk onto the beach and came upon a large van and its occupants, who initially we thought were a film crew, but then realized were a wedding photography company complete with a real-life bride and groom. It’s traditional in Taiwan to have one’s wedding photos taken before the actual wedding ceremony, and the beach or rural locations are a favourite place for outdoor photos. The setting on this stretch of the beach was fairly rugged and we guessed that maybe the bride and groom had grown up in the area and played on the beach as kids.

The path was very well maintained and wide enough for serious heavy traffic. At one stage we had to almost dive into the hedgerows to allow a large lorry and a truck to pass. It was nearly 5pm and the vehicles were heading home, so we too decided that as we had been walking for almost four hours and it was still raining, it was a good time to end our walk and have Henry pick us up outside a coastguard station.

Our final destination was the Wufengqi waterfalls and the Catholic Sanctuary of Our Lady of Wufengqi. The drive from the beach into the hills behind JiaoXi takes about 25 minutes, and we arrived at the entrance to the falls just as the rain had stopped.

In 1980, a group of hikers set off from Pinglin (the mouth of the Hsueshan tunnel) to hike over to Yilan, but got lost and, as the daylight was fading, became worried and started to pray to the Virgin Mary.  This is quite unusual for Taiwan as Catholics are few in number, but they obviously chose the right deity as, apparently, Mary appeared and led them to safety. Since then, the peak where this miracle occurred has become a pilgrimage site and there are numerous memorials along the trail that starts at the back of the church, winding up into the hills above.

There are three tiers of waterfalls and the highest one tumbles majestically from above the side of the church down into the steep valley, then divides into two. The Church has a great view out to the east coast and the South China Sea and, as the sun began to sink below the horizon, we decided to head back to the start of the waterfall path and drive into Jiaoxi for our dinner.

Jiaoxi is an ‘odd’ town. Many years ago, it was known for its numerous brothels, which were frequented by long distance lorry drivers passing through on their way to and from the Eastern side of the island. Fortunately, its also famous for its natural hot springs and nowadays there are a number of hot spring hotels, some with very funny English names, as well as glitzy apartment buildings boasting natural hot spring water in the bathrooms.

Henry drove us to the Old Street and having said goodbye and thanked him, we began looking for a place to have dinner. Tim is a Sinophile and was a great help deciphering the various signs hanging outside the numerous restaurants and an even bigger help translating the menu and ordering for us.

It was a feast and, true to form, we washed it down with a few cold beers before getting a taxi back into Taipei.

End of day 13. Total 17.2km

Elaine.

PS For those of you who don’t know our fellow walker Tim, please check out his YouTube channel “Kung Fu Heaven”, as there’s some great videos shot in some of Tainan’s most famous temples and the Chi Mei Museum.