The bus took us to our first stop, the dubiously named Swallow Grotto Yanzikou trail. I had read that they recommended hard hats, though many went without them. I also had read that they give you hats at the ranger station at the entrance. This was wrong. Deciding to err on the side of caution, we walked one kilometer to pick up our hats, and then one back. The trail was named after the swallows that darted in and out of the gorge in this section. Unfortunately, the cars and construction drove away most of the swallows. They said that some still remain, and even nest in the Spring. It is the Spring and we didn't see a single swallow. We only saw them in the car tunnels while walking to get our hard hats.
The walk itself was extremely short and to be honest, there wasn't much to see.
We walked back through the trail and then the extra kilometer to drop off our hard hats. We were told by the person working there that the spot was also a bus stop. He let us know when the bus was coming, though we had to flag down the driver. Our next stop was the Lushui Trail. I saw a caterpillarlike creature early on, and so decided to keep out my close up lens and look for insects.
The trail started off tame and then we went through a tunnel and exited hugging the cliffside with a railing. It quickly went back into being a relaxing hike. Miles helped point out insects along the way. We took much, much longer than we needed to walk this hike because of all of the insects that we were able to spot. It was a ton of fun.
Afterwards, we had to wait at the bus stop. The sign clearly indicated that there would be a bus within five minutes, but it never came. We ended up waiting for a while. So long in fact, that a Chinese couple that was waiting there with us ended up hitchhiking in a car waved down by shaking their thumb at cars. Miles found a rock that had a tiny critter on it. I took out my camera and started taking pictures again. While I was happily snapping away, the bus arrived. I still wanted to take pictures.
Back in town, it was time to try the Buddhist temple and pagoda across the bridge. This time it was open and was pretty much empty. The inside of the pagoda had two spiral staircases. Luckily for me, they were both chained off. I laid down on the floor, facing upwards, and took some photos with my wide lens. I'm glad I brought it!
I made a quick stop at the temple next door. It was beautiful inside.
Tomorrow we leave to head back towards Taipei via slow train and then hop on the high speed rail to get to a very small town that I've been interested in visiting since my first trip. We will be there three nights and there isn't much to do in town outside of exploring the winding old roads. We will be able to rest and recuperate from the hikes.
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