After a few no shows from the Northern Legion the only riders to depart bright and early Saturday morning were Capt. Stag and myself… we took the 3 down through the living hell of the sub-Taichung industrial filth factories that pass for the towns of ChangHua, DouLiu, etc until we eventually cleared (un)civilization and got out into the mountains near DaPu on the way to ZengWen Reservoir… from there the magic that is the mountains took over and the trip became a great mix of heat, awesome roads and scenery until the increase in altitude brought with it the welcome drop in temperature and pollution levels until we broke out into the Southern Cross Island Highway (a big name for a very small road) proper after YuJing… all the way up we were looking for a camp spot, but flat ground is hard to find up in the real mountains, but eventually after a shot in the dark and some light offroading, we lucked out with the best camp spot I’ve ever found in Taiwan, scenery off the scale… Being at about 3200m (10,000ft) up however, by the next morning I had a good case of altitude sickness and it was all I could do to pilot the GS over the intermittant “special stage” sections of dirt, mud and rocks that punctuate the Southern Cross (and Central in a lot of places) on both sides due to the frequent landslides etc… I held it together, just, and after a 45min nap/coma next to the road at what was more or less sea level, my body re-adjusted and like the flick of a light switch I went from feeling like death to looking forward to a good day’s ride… so up towards HuaLian it was, opting for the 9 instead of the “done it a million times” coastal road, we arrived in time for lunch in HuaLian, picked up some supplies, gassed up and went up to Tian Xiang… A pleasant afternoon swim in the river and a night in Tian Xiang was a welcome reward for the mind bending stupidity and endless lines of rubber necking cretins in cars that packed Taroko, making it all but impassable… Bright and early Monday morning we left Tian Xiang, stopped for peach coffee at the sacred tree, took a few photos on the top on HeHuan, and by noon the filthy GS was parked up at home in Taichung… Another “South-Central” lap to add to the list… great roads, great adventure and great weather though thanks to the post typhoon high pressure…
Here’s a few pics…
out of the city at last…
Zeng Wen Reservoir…
My bike at the uber temple…
Heavy rains all of last week = lots of waterfalls…
The middle of the infamous South Cross…
Capt. Stag tip-toeing over the offroad bits trying to keep his bike clean…
The pure high altitide light makes for great photos…
The million NT view…
Mountains to the left of us…
Waterfalls to the right… Doesn’t get much better…
The prerequisite sunset shot…
Lots of water in Tian Xiang’s river…
Superb weather on He Huan Shan…
