Day 16: ZhuWei Harbour to Bali Old Street 竹圍漁港到八里老街

Day 16 Thursday January 27, 2022. ZHU WEI FISHING HARBOUR TO BALI OLD STREET (and Ferry over to TamSui).

The one with too many rivers to cross.

Day 16 was a break from tradition as we headed Southwest, instead of continuing down the East Coast. There were a couple of reasons for this; the distance away from Taipei and the winter weather. If we are to continue walking along the East coast, we will now need to stay overnight, otherwise we will spend longer travelling than walking and with the lead up to Chinese New Year, timing is challenging, especially whilst also trying to find days when it’s not pouring with rain.

We therefore decided to walk north from Zhu Wei fishing harbour up to Bali, where we had finished our walk on Day 5. We were once again joined by Tim and started the day with an hour’s taxi ride out to the coast. Zhu Wei Harbour is situated 3 km from TaoYuan International Airport and the journey out there is an easy one on the freeway, despite the heavier traffic during the run up to Chinese New Year.

The sun was shining as we arrived at the port and our first task was to find a willing photographer to take the obligatory “start of walk” photo. Luckily, the port has been redeveloped from a foreign trade port into a popular tourist destination, so we easily found a lovely local lady, who was highly recommended by her husband, to take the photo. Zhu Wei port is also famous as the location for the popular Taiwanese Rom-Com, “PS Man”, which was filmed there in 2010 and tells the story of a rich, handsome, playboy who is sentenced to community service, where he meets a beautiful kindergarten teacher and becomes torn between her and an old flame – it’s pure Taiwanese melodrama!

After a quick look inside the fish market, where the day’s catch was being sold, we set off towards the Rainbow bridge, which is a steel arch Nielsen-Lohse structure and is a popular spot for sunset photos. We took a couple of photos on the bridge, but as we were a good few hours early for sunset, decided not to linger and headed north.

Leaving the harbour, we walked through an area scattered with local graves with the hope of finding an access path to the beach, but unfortunately, we hit a dead end (no pun intended ), so had to turn back and head towards the old road, where there was a maintenance track which we were able to walk along before finally gaining access to the beach. As we walked along, we talked about the recent passing of Meatloaf and did a couple of renditions of his songs; it always helps to walk and sing.

Looking north we could see the line of huge wind turbines stretching into the distance and decided to have a quick rest on top of a pill box, which had obviously been blown/swept from its original location to its new resting place on the shoreline. Tim graciously shared the chocolate covered ginger snacks Fan Ding had given him and then we were on our way again. (Thank you, Fan Ding, for your wonderful snacks)

Just before the wind turbines, there were 4 SUV’s, including one Hummer, parked on the sand. Obviously, from the choice of vehicle, these were not ordinary fishermen and were in fact, the ‘drone fishermen’ This is a recent pastime in Taiwan and involves using drones to cast the hooks for the fishing rods, which are anchored into the sand. The fishermen attach the fishing hooks onto the drones, then fly them hundreds of metres out into the sea, where they drop them and wait for a bite. We watched as one drone flew out into the ocean and another ‘fisherman’ used the automatic reels to pull in his catch. It’s very unfair on the fish and is yet another reason overfishing is a real problem.

Further along this beach there was a fast running, shallow stream winding into the sea. It was too wide to jump across and it would have been a long detour to walk up to the road. Rich and I both thought we had waterproof boots (Rich didn’t – more on this later) so we strode across, whilst Tim seemed stranded. As we waited on the opposite side, Tim removed his shoes, gently paddled across, then proceeded to pull a towel out of his backpack, dry his feet, put his socks and shoes back on, then start walking again. At the next stream, we tried hurling small boulders into the water to allow us to cross without dipping our feet in the water. Although this wasn’t particularly successful, at least we didn’t put our backs out. This was one of the 8 ‘rivers’ we would navigate on this walk and resulted in us naming it, the walk with ‘Many Rivers to Cross’ – Jimmy Cliff, Joe Cocker, UB40, Cher, Bryan Adams etc.

It’s always entertaining to walk with Tim and for this walk, he graciously shared with us some of his moves from the Chen family spear kung fu – with a piece of driftwood! He gave us a personal showing of him practicing the routine, much to the amusement of a truck driver, who was parked at the side of the road above the beach.

We left this beach and headed for the road. The roar of the vehicles swishing past was quite deafening and I was determined to find an access path back to the beach. We passed the road turn off to Linkou city and headed towards the Linkou power plant. Historically, this section of the coast was controlled by the military and there are very few inhabitants. As we walked along the road, to our left, we could still just about make out the layers of disused military fortifications and behind them the lush layouts of the 5 local golf courses; Miramar, Yung Han, Hsing Fu, Tong Hwa and the Bali International, which span the hills from Taipei out to Linkou.

Having passed the Power plant, we had to continue along the main road and despite me pleading with a couple of security guards to allow us access to the beach, they were adamant that only “workmen” could enter, so on we went, trying to think of popular songs, with “road” in the title. How many can you, dear reader, think of? I’ll list ours at the end of this blog!

We also tried to think which songs were on the Rumours album by Fleetwood Mac but didn’t get many of the titles. I was certain there was one about a dinosaur and it was only later at dinner that I remembered I was actually thinking about their song, “Albatross’! (Wrong album and wrong species…. I’m useless at remembering things like that!) Eventually, we saw a dirt road leading past a couple of small factories and followed this back to the shoreline, where we proceeded to walk under the massive wind turbines and alongside the newly planted shrubby patches, which are being used to stop the sand/soil erosion.

After a couple of kilometres along the sand, our path became nothing but small and large pebbles and having slid and slipped across these for a good half an hour, we decided to once again head up to the road, as the pebbles were becoming quite tiring underfoot and were making our going very slow.

Back on the road, we passed a couple of cute beachside coffee shops where cyclists, big bikers and city day trippers stop to take in the views and then arrived at the Bali refuse incineration plant with its distinctive incendiary tower and glass paneled exterior.

The next part of our journey was in my opinion the most exciting of the day as I believe we ‘illegally’ (but not intentionally) walked along the No 61 National Highway. It was a genuine mistake and happened like this; we could see Taipei Port up ahead and as the road forked, we thought, ‘why not just stay nearer to the coast?’, which is what we did. As Tim and Rich walked ahead, I heard someone shouting, what I thought was my name, so turned to see who it was. It was a youngish Taiwanese guy who asked me in Mandarin if I was lost. I said, “no” and added we were walking to Bali, where the road led. He then proceeded to tell me that the road was dangerous, to which I replied, ‘Most roads in Taiwan are’ and then after asking me again, if I was lost, decided to leave me be and I walked off up the ramp to catch Tim and Rich up. Of course, I first wished my new friend a Happy Chinese New Year and thanked him for his concern, but could clearly see that he thought I was yet ‘another crazy foreigner’! (He wasn’t wrong.) When I finally reached the top of the ramp, I could understand why this part of the freeway is off limits to pedestrians and why my new friend was sure I was lost; there were hundreds of heavy goods vehicles hurtling towards us and at times, they really were a bit too close for comfort. However, the great thing about being so high up was the wonderful views of the coast and the huge Century Wind company warehouse to our right and up ahead we could see the huge cranes of Taipei port and the towering peaks of Yang Ming Shan. Below us, we could also see some traditional fishermen perched on the rocks, as well as the coast guards’ fleet of large and small vessels. We didn’t get many photos as we were quite concerned with the proximity of the vehicles heading our way and thus tried to walk as fast as we could towards the exit.

Taipei port is the country’s newest port and was opened in 1998. The Government’s plan is for this port to overtake Keelung as the nation’s busiest and billions of NT$ have been invested in the infrastructure and ocean dredging required to achieve this goal. No wonder there were so many container lorries on the highway.

Having rested for about ten minutes and with around 5km to go until the end of our walk, we set off on the final stretch, hoping we would arrive at Bali Old Street before it got dark.

Whilst planning this walk, we knew it would be a hard slog for the first three quarters, after which it would become very pleasant. We were now on that ‘nice bit’ and made our way through the manicured grounds of the Shihsanhang Museum of Archeology.

The decision to open a museum on an existing excavation site, was made in 1990. Originally the government had planned to turn the site into a sewage treatment plant, but following much protestation from the archaeological community, it was decided to preserve the site and build a museum to showcase the history of the area. The museum was designed by a Taiwanese architect, Sun Te-hung and was finally opened to the public in April, 2003.

On our walk, we thought the name of the museum probably originated from the 13 indigenous Taiwanese tribes, but on further research, it turns out that the area surrounding the archeological site was an important trading port during the Qing dynasty and as there were as many as thirteen suburbs, the area became known as the ‘ thirteen lines’, hence the name.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to visit the museum, but would highly recommend it to gain an understanding of Taiwan’s early history. There are also stunning views from the rooftop deck, which was designed to represent the sighting of a whale’s back in the ocean.

Leaving the museum grounds, we walked alongside ( this time not along) Highway 61 and then veered east to join the bike path which runs through the mangroves on its way into Bali. Tim was very impressed with the layout of the shore front and the surrounding architecture and said it reminded him of Sydney – I personally think that’s a bit of a stretch of one’s imagination, but it’s a great place for a stroll, with a lovely view over the TamSui river.

During the summer months, the shoreline along Bali’s left bank becomes home to beautiful sand sculptures, but as it was winter, we were left to admire the permanent IG photo spots, one of which represents a pair of lips and some teeth, so of course, Tim and I had to get a pic!

We had reached our destination; Bali Old street and we had also made it just before dark, so we were feeling very proud of ourselves and having just missed a ferry over to TamSui, went in search of beer and a pair of dry socks for Rich.

We passed the lines of shops, which in pre-covid times would have been thronging with overseas tourists, but today were sparsely visited by brave locals willing to be out and about in the wet, chilly weather.

Fortunately, the local Family Mart had both cold beers and dry socks and making our way back to the pier, we were pleasantly surprised by the timely arrival of our ferry. It felt so nice to sit down and with the grey skies above Guan Yin mountain behind us and the lights of Taipei city to our right, we headed over to TamSui. The three-kilometer ferry journey is very fast but is also just long enough to enjoy being on the water and to take in all the views, which were even prettier at night, with all the twinkling lights.

Our final task was to decide where to eat dinner. There are numerous options around the ferry docking area, but as we were really quite weary by this stage, we decided on The Water Front Restaurant, as it has some very comfy seating, great views and a somewhat decent menu.

We would normally end the day with a few Taiwan beers, but as we were ‘living it up’, we had imported beer and chilled white wine – Thank you TIM for treating us.

Rich changed into dry socks; we reminisced about the day’s walk and having had our fill of food and drink, it was time for a taxi home.

Another fantastic walk. 27.5km. The longest so far!

Elaine.