Crossing the Gaoping River

Ah, the Gaoping River - rises in the southern part of the Central Mtns, and flows south, dividing Kaohsiung and Pingdong Counties.
What’s the best bridge to cross this on by bike?

I’ve driven the 88 (horrible, and prob not allowed anyway), and there’s this, the Ligang bridge carrying Freeway 3 (nicely impressive but no bike lane?)

I’d be coming north from Fangliao on the #1, and heading for Tainan.
I can see there are 3 bridges upstream of Freeway 3, would it be nicer to say go through Sandimen, then Gaoshu and cross here on the #181 (link)?

If you want to go through Sandimen then take the 185. The road surface can be a bit rough in patches but a lovely road skirting the mountains and running through fields. Mostly bypasses towns so almost no blight.

Does West Coast Blight aflict places east of Freeway 3 as well then? Chaozhou, Neipu?
#185 is as far east on the west-side as you can get, so seems like a good one.

Then I’d just nip left through Gaoshu and over the river. Otherwise got to go further upstream, and then back down the, er, #28. Bit of a detour.

[quote=“Nuit”]Does West Coast Blight aflict places east of Freeway 3 as well then? Chaozhou, Neipu?
#185 is as far east on the west-side as you can get, so seems like a good one.

Then I’d just nip left through Gaoshu and over the river. Otherwise got to go further upstream, and then back down the, er, #28. Bit of a detour.[/quote]

Chaozhou and Neipu are quite nice areas although Highway 1 sucks at various points as you go through towns, particularly toward the South end of Pingdong City (Linluo is really awful). I actually took the bike lane around the east side of town to get back to the train station awhile ago just so I could avoid driving through Linluo a third time.

Just take the 185 as far north as you can and then cut west to Tainan on the 20 or some yi-jing combination of provincial/county roads. The 181 north of Meinong is also really nice. Anyway, the area around the 185 is like a miniature version of the Rift Valley as far as I’m concerned. I love just putting around there (In fact I just spent a week there after Christmas)

Michael Turton’s blog has a couple of nice entries with pics about the 185 and Wanluan township in particular.

Alright, cheers PB. Looking forward to a nice and mostly peaceful #185 then.
The bit between Meinong and Tainan looks a little hilly, so hopefully I can find somewhere nice through there too.