After a hiatus of over 12 months, (our last walk was on January 27, 2022), we finally had a date for our Day 17 walk. We were once again lucky enough to avail ourselves of Henry’s services (one of Elaine’s twin sons) as a driver and Marie as the navigator and we set off from DaAn Park just before ten, under very grey and misty skies, hoping it wouldn’t be wet and foggy out on the West coast.
Tim, who had travelled up from Tainan joined us again, and the one hour journey out to Zhu Wei Harbour passed very quickly as we were entertained by both Tim and Rich’s discussions of their preparations for their upcoming birthday celebrations, as well as other topics including Dogs in Prams, Wushu Champions and magic shows.
Arriving at the coast, we were pleasantly surprised by the weather change, and it was dry and clear as we began walking from Zhu Wei harbour. This was the starting point for our previous Day 16, but today, we were heading South. Having taken the obligatory start of the walk photo with the backdrop of the harbour, we first listened to Henry’s story about the local Tern Colony and then headed onto the beach.
STUDENTS AND BIRD LOVERS PROTECT LITTLE TERNS BREEDING SITE 20170607 公視早安新聞 – YouTube
The beach was typical of this part of Taiwan’s West coast, with darker volcanic sand and dotted with various structures erected by local fishermen. There were also the ubiquitous heaps of large rubbish bags which had been filled from the latest round of beach clean-ups. It’s very sad that despite the ongoing beach clean-up operations, there are constant mountains of rubbish washing onto the beaches from the China Sea and various landfills
Having made our way over some small sand dunes, we arrived at the path leading toward the XuCuoGang wetlands. Over to our right were numerous art installations, which serve as both fishing platforms as well as art. Of course, Tim and Elaine had to check if they really could hold fishermen (and Walking Taiwan walkers) and had fun heading out into the ocean, without getting wet. The signs explaining the various works were very insightful and the names of the pieces were very cute; A couple of examples include 啾啾 (jiu jiu) ‘Tweet Tweet’, and 鰻苗架 穿新衣(man miao jia chuan xin yi) ‘An eel rack wearing new clothes.
We took a short break and then headed further along, over the charming little BuXin bridge and into the actual wetlands. The XuCuoGang wetlands now occupy 22 hectares of land, which prior to 2018 was occupied by illegal fish farms. Historically, this area on the West coast of Taiwan had been inhabited and visited by a large number of water birds, but due to the combination of natural estuary sedimentation and illegal fish farms, their numbers were decreasing as the water levels became too high for them to wade for their food.
Following a concerted effort combining local ecologists and various government bodies to create the wetlands, this area is now visited by over 240 different bird species, as it is located on the migration path of birds in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway.
Supposedly, the best times to see the birds are in the early morning and from 3:00 pm to sunset. Sadly, our timing was out, as it was noon whilst we were walking through and other than a few sandpipers, we didn’t get any sightings.
Henry and Marie were waiting for us at the rest stop and drove us for 15 minutes down to ShuLinLi. We had decided not to walk this part of the route as the beaches are not easily accessible, are inevitably inhabited by wild dogs and strolling along the road would involve walking under the elevated highway, passing several chemical plants and other ominous buildings billowing clouds of whatever from their chimneys.
Back on the beach once again, we headed towards the Bai Sha Jia Lighthouse.
Unfortunately, because of the ocean currents and the direction of the winds, the entire beach was strewn with marine rubbish and appeared to resemble a barren apocalyptical wasteland. With no other humans in sight, we imagined being part of the late 60’s TV show, Planet of the Apes and were only distracted from these thoughts by Tim suggesting he show us his latest Kung Fu form – Chen Style Halberd (陳式關刀).
Having been impressively entertained, we were on our way and checking the time, decided that we could possibly make it past the lighthouse and down to Yong An harbour prior to nightfall. Checking the map, it seemed a straightforward one hour and 45 minute walk along the coast, so we headed past a China Petroleum Company (CPC) Natural gas receiving port construction site and onto a dirt track that is used to maintain the various wind turbines dotted along the shoreline.
Unfortunately, the track ended at the last turbine and we were forced to retrace our steps back to the CPC construction site. This wasted over half an hour of our time and with the daylight fading, we decided to head for the lighthouse, which was situated about 40 minutes inland. As we headed out towards the road, we noticed there was a guardhouse for the construction site, complete with a guard and a barrier. We obviously hadn’t gone through the barrier to enter, as we had walked across the sand dunes, so the guard was completely surprised to see three non-Taiwanese approach the barrier to leave. He was even more confused when Elaine wished him a Happy Chinese New Year in Mandarin and when asked where we had come from, replied in Taiwanese that we were ‘from China’!
The walk to the lighthouse took us through a small part of the industrial park and past the Dong Hai Tang (Eastern Sea Palace) Temple and its neighbouring 3 in 1 traditional brick residences and the sight of the lighthouse was very welcoming, as it signalled that the end of the walk was nigh.
The BaiSha Cape Lighthouse was completed in 1901 and became the first of its kind in Northern Taiwan. It stands 36.6M above sea level and faces the navigational route of ships sailing south from Keelung and TamShui. In 2002, it was designated as an official Ancient Site and is no longer in actual use. The grounds are very tidy and full of old Banyan trees and having walked around and over to the Observation point, which was rather underwhelming, we embarked on the final leg of our day’s walk into GuanYin.
The centre of GuanYin is dominated by the GanQianSi (Stone GuanYin) Temple. This temple is over 150 years old and has a beautiful mural at the rear depicting a sitting GuanYin deity accompanied by a male and a female devotee. Its interior consists of three halls and its five outer gates are quite magnificent.
There were several local eateries situated around the Temple and we finally settled on a small Hakka establishment to end the day. We ordered a few local Hakka dishes and the obligatory cold Taiwan Gold Label beers. When we entered the restaurant, we were the only patrons, but as the evening progressed, we were joined by others, including some of the local political dignitaries who were bemused by the three of us and our ability to make the beer disappear and converse with them in Mandarin and Taiwanese. Tim also decided to try a bottle of the local HongLiu wine – Red Dew Wine（紅露酒）which can only be described as “interesting” and is probably best used in cooking, rather than drinking neat!
Having eaten and drank more than we probably should have, the owners kindly called a taxi for us and we enjoyed the chauffeured service back into Taipei.
The end of yet another great day walking.
Total distance 20.5km.
End of Day 17 Elaine.