25 March 2017
Huge number of steps
Hiking in Puli to a remote unnamed temple
Right now I have done 55,800 steps today. Close to a record. I still have to go and find dinner, so I will set a new personal best. Exciting times indeed. Photo of watch face step counter will be provided with todays second update as proof.
My mother will no doubt have noticed by now that I am late on my update, thats because I started walking at 8am and only just returned home to the hotel at 6pm, without taking a break!
Yesterday I had selected my mountain based on a geospatial analysis of local options and paths showing up on maps on openstreetmap. A great deal of planning went into this selection process. So when I go to the start of the path and there was no path, I was mildly annoyed!
Not to worry, there are other paths, I will just keep trying until I find one that works out, and I did, and it went up really high, but it went a really really long way around the back of the mountains up a valley to get there.
I believe my path of choice was an old logging track, it would be possible to take a 4 wheel motorbike up it, so no chance of getting lost today. But despite the good path, the great scenery, and a mystery temple as you will see, I did not see a single person in 8 hours.
Where was everyone? The path would have been ok for mountain bikers but there were none, and who was looking after the temple? So many questions unanswered, so many pictures of view to scroll past.
Dont expect a huge update later on tonight, I wont be going far!
Before finding the defining path of the day, I had to hike out of the city to the mountain area. About 5km. This took me past the old people exercise park and its well cared for trees.
I should have stolen this and driven to the start of the mountain.
Heres my zoomed in shot of Puli street life for today.
A sure sign I am on the edge of town, the local discount TV warehouse.
Its still a long way to the mountains!
Starting to look promising, the ridge nearest to the left of this photo was where a path was shown on my fancy mapping app.
I asked some bored old people sitting nearby yelling at clouds, and they laughed at me hysterically. I tried to find the path anyway, but it was just rubbish and big spiders.
Now I have found the logging trail. I felt relieved. Time to bound up the trail as fast as I could.
It didnt take long for the view to get great. Rain was forecast, it didnt rain all day. The cloud seems to settle in the valleys, the various peaks were less cloudy. Thats my cloud update for now.
The first part was the steepest, then there was a lot of looping around over different peaks. The mountain has no name, the range has the knife character in the name and some other traditional Chinese character hieroglyphic outdated nonsense I cant read.
Interestingly, ok mildly interesting at best, this is the top of the path that I failed to find when laughed at by old people. So it does exist. Oh well, not today!
The scenery changed a number of times. I was never sure if the trees were natural or old plantations.
I could have stopped at this point, but no, lets see how far this path goes!
The trees here look very much like those on Japanese mountains. There was lots of wildlife, these black and white peacock looking things, a deer, monkeys and some very large birds. All managed to escape my camera lense.
Cheap accommodation. This really was the only sign of other humans between the bottom and the temple. There was no sign anyone had been here for a long time.
And then out of nowhere, there was a temple. I dont know how you get to it other than the way I had. Surely people must come up here and look after it often, it was spotless.
I always question how these things get built.
It looks brand new to me. There is no one here that I could find, and I looked everywhere they might be. I could have done whatever I wanted with only gold statues watching. Instead I pushed on!
Out behind the temple theres this flat picnic area, and a view of where I still had to get to.
I think I had been walking up through all those as far as the eye could see.
And then the ridge goes up and around a bit, and its the end of the path. You can see a bit of Puli below.
Time for the pose. Not one of my best, legs too close together.
I briefly considered trying to descend another way, there was a logging trail grown over. It gave a better view of the city below but I had not guarantee it actually ever went back down. I didnt have enought light left in the day to find out so I retreated back the way I had came.
The light kept changing, it was an eerie twilight for a while but it hasnt translated into the photo too well.
Almost back down now, I was enjoying these strange trees with their big leaves, and the cliffs.
I am finally back to civilization! Enjoy these pink blossoms and a gate.
Back at my hotel, they had heard about how many steps I had done today, so the celebration tent singers are going full blast. I am the only person in the audience.