TAROKO NATIONAL PARK By Bicycle | Taiwan Cycling Trip

Good. Morning Taiwan - accrues here checking, in in quality, n with. My wife -, she. Just arrived in Taiwan last night we took the late-night train here - while in from Taipei and today, we're going out for an adventure, we'll be cycling - taroko national park, there's, a big typhoon in the south part of Taiwan right now lots of rain clouds affecting, this area as well but we've, got a little bit of a sunny break it looks like the mountains are a bit cloudy. It. Might be a little bit risky but we're up for an adventure we've, got our matching, shirts on today and we're totally standing, out as tourists but that's ok we've got our high visibility, bright, green shirts on perfect for cycling we're making our way to the giant. Bicycle, store to rent our bicycles, for today and then we'll be on the road so let's go check back in at the giant store. We. Just picked up our bikes from the giant rental store this is my bike we'll be renting tom's. Bike is this one and. We, got some sweet cute. Water bottles tones pretty excited about, and. We're gonna go ahead and get started. Thank. You. Just. About ready to start our ride but first we got to grab some food we haven't eaten anything yet luckily. There's a 7-eleven convenience store right over here so we're, gonna go put snack and. Then get on the road, stuck. The bunch of bread so we have some snacks for later. This is the red bean bread so. Luckily knowing, kanji you know this means like red and this mean bean so can guess this is the red bean bread. This. Is like the. Mexican. Milky. Filling right I had it last time I was here really good but, we're not going to eat breakfast here we're gonna keep going on and try and find some other place to eat breakfast. Not. Looking, good for us weather-wise, those, are some massive cloud surrounding that mountain which we're. About to go enter we've. Started to make our way out of quality in we're. Going up along the East Coast following, along this like river path right now and, already just. There's. All these planes flying around right now so apparently. There's some sort of military base nearby here because these aren't like normal blades these are like military planes it's, really loud so I'm gonna put the camera our way right now until the.

Plane Goes away. So. Some first impressions, I thought. Japan had a lot of 7-elevens, but they've. Got 7/11 fever here in Taiwan here in qualia, there's, literally a new 7-eleven, like every, square, block I've, not even separated there's one right, here we just passed by one right back there it's, also weird riding on the right side of the road cuz we ride on the left side in Japan all the time, but. Yeah so far the scenery has been really, awesome it's, really hot right now but it's, not so bad because the winds really strong and yeah. Just really, happy to be out of here and the bikes really happy everything worked out smoothly these, bikes that were renting our awesome, they're pretty fast they're pretty solid and they got a lot of storage with the bags and everything the, only complaint I have so far is those planes are really loud and they're coming like everyone's, annoying, I don't know if this is a regular thing here or if this is just kind of like a special military drill, but, if this happens every day that's that's got to be pretty annoying if you're living here anyway. Continuing on we're. Heading more closer to the beach right now and hopefully get a ride along the coast and take the scenic route up into. Tonto. Park Hanako national park the, other great thing about Taiwan is, all the public athletic facilities, you see there's just a little place to work out here here's, a this, is a pretty bad example because this is a pretty rundown tennis, court but yeah the main the main point is they have these facilities everywhere, and here we go that seems to be a rundown one but right next, to here we've got another nicer. Park more brand-new and stuff especially. In Taipei they have those parks everywhere so free public tennis courts pre public basketball, courts nothing. Like that in Japan there's no place to play basketball or tennis outside. Well. There is to play tennis but you have to reserve and everything like weeks in advance if not months in advance one. Of the things I really love here about Taiwan is just the, free public, athletic. Facilities, here. We go this is their new Athletic, Park it looks like beautiful. Really. Nice we're also riding in sandals.

Today Tunes. Got her new sandals we bought in Vietnam my. Sandals we got in Vietnam and. The, reason for that is because it's. Really sunny right here but. It looks like it's gonna rain over there so just in case it rains we're, protected. So. Speaking of the military earlier it, looks like we're right by one of the military bases because they've got all the fences lined, up here with the barbed wire and they, had some pictures of the Jets on. The walls. Looks. Like we're on the right track, tatta go National Park, we. Go. Stopping. For a quick snack these. Look pretty good, we're. Gonna give it a track. Really. Hot out there we're sweating pretty bad taking, a quick break at the convenient, to grab some cold sports, drinks and stock, up on some other snacks just in case because, we're about to go enter at our local National, Park which, is right over here, so, we're gonna be climbing up into the mountains in a bit and we're. Not sure how isolated, it is how many shops are anything there's gonna be there so I'm gonna stock up here real quick and cool off in the AC for a second about, 20k in so it took us about 20 K to ride over here we, also got that really good looking like bun that we're pretty excited to try out so quick. Fuel up and then we're going to be back on the road. Follow. Me Chung's, favorite so, this is one of my favorite snacks here in Taiwan, I think it's called through joking so, it's like a peppered bread club this one's a little bit different since the normal one you see do, I kill don't you got any other. Yeah. That's, easy. To. Say it's hot would be a bit of an understatement. But, we're gonna go back. On the road hopefully it's a bit cooler in the gorge looks, like we might not get hit with rain it is still a bit cloudy over in the mountains but I'm crossing our fingers we might be lucky let's, get back on the road. Absolutely. Loving all of the canopy trees here and especially, the bike lane here granted. This is for the scooters and. The, bikes and stuff like that but our. Cyclists, can use them too and there's not much traffic, really. Nice. Here. We are looks like we're starting to enter the main gorge area we've, got a little descent here and looks. Like we're gonna be wedged in between the mountains right straight up ahead, we. Haven't even entered yet and I'm already getting a really good feeling about this I have, a feeling this is going to be beautiful. Possibly. The last 7-eleven. Before, we enter into the mountains I forgot. To mention in earlier in today's vlog that today's. Course is actually part of the Taiwan kom Challenge so a really, popular climbing, challenge here in Taiwan they hold it a couple times different. Events throughout the year but I think the main one is in September, or October or, around there really want to participate in that one day hoping to do it today, we're not riding the full course it's about 100 kilometres and climbs. Up over, 3,000, meters of elevation game pretty, insane stuff we're not going to be doing that on these bikes in this close today but, hopefully we'll do that another day today, we're just checking out the main attractions, at the gorge and nearby the entrance of the park and here we are at the entrance so we should be starting to see some pretty cool stuff pretty soon looks. Like we got some restaurants, and shops here we've. Arrived at the main entrance everyone. Stopped by. This bridge taking, pictures, pretty. Cool site looks. Like a kind of dried-up river but, a couple streams is still going they. Got water markers, there by the bridge so I wonder if once upon a time or, sometimes if there's some bad flooding if the water level rises up to get up there they'll be pretty insane considering, how low it is right now anyway. Here's the gate for the entrance to the park we're gonna ride through that and go. Check it out and. Then already you can see some. Of the awesome cool little tunnels that we're gonna pass through there's, one example right there. Most, people come here by touring buses so. I'm guessing we're gonna run into a lot of those buses on the road time.

To Begin. Starting. With some absolute, beautiful views just instantly, as we entered the park all, of those sort. Of like cave, tunnels where. You're just going through and it's rocks right, here you can see we're going through another one and. These. Are actually as cool as they are these, are a bit scary there, was a local rider from, in Japan where I live who, was riding in this area last year and a falling rock hit his head which, killed him, and. So. You do need to be extra careful while you're riding through here make sure you are wearing a helmet we, rented some extra helmets from the giant store today as well those cost an extra 100 Taiwanese, dollars for our whole trip which isn't bad and, men. Just loving. Riding through here even though it is a bit busy with cars the roads are a bit more narrow than the other roads but. It's not so bad everyone's pretty polite and respectful because, there's lots of cyclists and pedestrians here. But. Yeah just them being surrounded. By. Like, being in a gorge surrounded, by tall massive mountains, on both sides the, beautiful river in the center and. It's. Just beautiful clear. Water beautiful. Bridges here's a sign watch out for falling rocks especially. Now when it's like storm season there's all the typhoons heavy winds strong. Rains coming here must. Be really dangerous we're. About to go through this sort of big tunnel not super big but we. Just turned our lights on luckily. These bikes came with lights. Coming. Out of the tunnel we got two different splits here we're gonna go check out the what, is this the Chung tun temple. Oh. Sun. Starting to come out beautiful. View as we approach the temple over here in the waterfall. There. We go beautiful, view of the waterfall and temple, area over there. Key. Date on a, demo. Kimi, hotel today Jenai. I can't. Emphasize our, show properly, in the camera how tall and how massive these mountains, are but, just take a look at this. It. Looks like there's a hiking path that goes up along here you can, see sort of some trails. Built into the side of the mountain right there and. This goes all the way all the way all the way up, there's. Also another, shrine. Or temple over, there as well so it looks like if you hike up you can get up to the other part don't, think we're gonna do that today though. We. Just took a look at the map to figure out where we are and what sort of attractions, there are here and, it looks like we just sort of went through loop so we're gonna go back to where we just were and I, think, these are most of the main tourist, attraction, areas in here but we're gonna try and continue and go climb up the mountain a little bit I'll see how far I can convince. Tone to go until we decide to turn around so, we're gonna write a bit more of the kom climbing, course hopefully, get a few more beautiful sights in along the way all right let's get back on the road. Looks. Like a pretty old bridge guess, you can walk over that must be one of the parts. Of the hiking trails oh it says don't enter so never mind don't go there man. Just. Surrounded, by beautiful sights no matter which direction you look. It. Looks like they're working on our new tunnel here. So. It's pushing her way through the climb. Looks. Like the tunnel that we saw earlier it just comes out right here that's, really not that long only like a kilometer maybe to not. Shower where they're making that but looks. Nice. I'm. Gonna stop and take a quick break here right by the dam it. Looks like there's a lot more water up here and. They're just filtering, through. The stem I think. Towing may have reached her limit so, we're gonna stop eat a snack and see she's willing to continue or not so let's eat some of the on phone with the red bean bread that we bought earlier, these. Bags that were renting are pretty cool they're. Not quite waterproof, but they do have a waterproof cover that will come up in to protect it if we need it it's, got pouches in the backs for our drinks and yeah, just really useful everything, came included, with the bike rental, we paid 1,700. Taiwanese, dollars for the three days came, with all these the two bags in the back the, back in the front we, got a water bottle and, the pump in computer, lights everything.

So. The spread turned out to be not just red bean but it's, got a little bit of cream inside there as well pretty good snack, we're. In this little pavilion, thing nice, little rest stop by the dam beautiful. View of the river from here full, body of water now and really, lucky with the clouds everywhere. So. Far everywhere that we've been riding we haven't been under the dark clouds yet they just seem to be stuck deeper in the mountains little break is over we're gonna go back on the road let's get going on to the next attraction. We. Found one of the remaining tourist. Spots, looks like it's gonna be a pretty tough climb I asked him do, you want to climb this or not and she's, like let's. Just do it and so we're. Gonna give it a try not. Sure how high we're gonna go not sure how beautiful the site is going to be up at the top but we're, gonna start climbing. So. That was a little tough of a climb to get up here and up, at the top here we've got this kind of like recreational. Center lots, of families out here most people would be driving up here there's also a couple of buses that came up here and not. Quite sure all there is to, do but we don't have too much time to stick around but it looks like you can keep hiking a little bit up to the top we were hoping to be able to ride our bikes to the top and get a really nice view so, we came all the way here we might as well check, out this little hiking path here and see. If there's a nice view up at the top this, says the the, village hotel or something so we're. Gonna try and I, guess. We could ride up this but we're probably going to walk up it. After. Finding a few signs and reading a bit of more about this place found, out that this, is kind, of like the region where the more indigenous old, Taiwanese, population used to live and have kind of like a tribe, I guess so, we've got some statues, here we just climbed up to the top of that road and they've. Got the, hotel. Here, so all decorated in the old fashioned. Style I guess the old style kind, of reminds me a bit of like the Native American, population in the US so. We've got some designs. Decorated, all over the place looks, like they have some nature paths and some unique places. Built all over the area, pretty. Cool so let's try. And explore a little bit more before we head, back, some. Nice artwork here. So. Up here it looks like this is kind of where the hotel connects to looks. Like they've got some more like older style buildings, and I. Guess you can stay here camp out here and sort of experience, like the older lifestyle, I guess a bunch, of hiking paths hiking, trails all around pretty cool place anyway. I think that's all we're going to explore here for now we don't have too much time got to start heading back before it gets dark. So. We decided to continue on and go to the last and final stop on the trail it was so close we had to do it this, is called swallow grotto and, another. Beautiful view of the gorge right here, apparently. In this section you also need to wear helmets everyone's. Got helmets on all the regular pedestrians, as well luckily we've already got our helmets. Co-op. So they've got little. Holes oh wow. This. Is beautiful. Little. Holes going in here Wow, the wall over, there is just awesome. Just. Not quite.

There's. Another one over here. Wow. Check out all those holes over there. Massive. Drop. That. Is really cool. It. Is so, beautiful, here nothing, quite does it justice I've seen videos of the race footage from the ko I'm challenged and we're, riding through that main gorge area right now just, super wide open and insanely beautiful, unfortunately. Going to call it quits for right now we've got about two and a half hours till sunset and, it's going to take us about that long to get home so. We're. Heading back hopefully. It'll be mostly just sent out of here totems pretty low on energy, and we're going to get some food at the end once we exit out of the mountains. Anyway. Here's. A nice beautiful, montage, of our ride back. We're. Just exited, teracle, National, Park had a blast going down that descent that was really nice and we're. At about 55, KN completely. Done on sandals, and feet, are starting to hurt right now because they're, not as stiff as I'd like them to be for this kind of long ride but tongues, holding up pretty good but. We're gonna go get some food right now because, we're brilliant hungry we haven't eaten a real solid meal all day we've just been eating sort of snacks like. Bread it different actually mostly just bread so. We're gonna get our reward, meal, and search. For some good food so let's see what, food options we can find here Iman Oh Joshua. Mom. I guess we that. Makes. You suckers old. So. We stopped by the convenience, store which is one of the few places that's open and we got some milk they're really famous with their soy milk here this is one of my favorite ones that I drank last time no, sugar high fiber and chunks, gonna try the papaya milk I also, got sunburned, by the way you can see here I didn't ripe any sunscreen on my knees so a little bit of sunburn but nothing bad anyway. Let's, let's, drink some, milk. Unfortunately. This is going to be the end of our day trip recycling, ride from qualia into tautoko National Park for, anyone who's in the area and thinking about renting bikes and doing this route we highly recommend it we had a great time checking out all the beautiful views in the mountains but, definitely be prepared there is a decent amount of climbing despite. The beautiful weather that we had for most of the day we did get hit with a little bit of rain for our ride back home if, you're interested, in following us with some more videos of us cycling, around Taiwan or also, watching some of our other videos cycling, around Japan be sure to subscribe to our channel if you haven't already you can also click the link for our playlists, of our videos here in Taiwan and also a playlist of our other cycling, videos thanks, for watching especially a big thanks to all of our patreon supporters, if you're interested, in watching our videos early you can go over to patreon, where we have early access for all of our patreon supporters, thanks, again to everyone for all of the support and we'll, see you next time here on tool Cruz be, sure to watch out for our next few videos where we'll be cycling more around Hualien and then also doing a cycling, tour from Hualien down to Taitung thanks. Again and we'll see you in the next one.

2018-09-06 06:33

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