12 May 2023
Smoke and ladders
Dakeng trails 2, 5 and 4
Today I went to a hike I have been on previously. If you look up hiking in Taichung, this will come up at the top of the list. The Dakeng trails are quite a distance out of the city, and now even harder to get to than ever, because buses are the invention of the useless. Google has pre covid timetables, not only are the times wrong, the route has been changed. I spent well over an hour running between phantom buses that no longer exist, eventually I scanned a QR code on a bus stop, which loaded a smart website that then had a popup that said 'Due to epidemic situation, routes no longer apply correctly, please phone bus company to enquire, phone number not known'. Wow! So I decided to walk closer to the trail and see what sort of buses were around. I boarded the wrong bus, but it went closer. Then I saw a road I recognised from the last time I was here, got off the bus I was on, scanned a QR code, and this time it said a bus was coming, and it did... so I could at least get to the start of my hike, 90 minutes late.
Now, I am well known for my terribly weak Achilles tendons, tight hips, under developed lungs, and general sickly demeanour (Attention mother: am I missing anything from your long list of failings I suffer from? Physical ones, I am not including dyslexia, Asperger's, tourette's or any of the other mental disorders you claim I have been diagnosed with). So I am apparently very poorly suited to climbing up a few miles of ladders, in dense pollution. But foolishly I did anyway, again, as I have been here before without any water, and was fine. Another side note, today I bought enough water to last 3 days.
The hike is actually short in distance, but due to the unique almost completely wooden ladder filled path, it takes a long time, and balancing to take good photos is tricky. But then after finishing, the bus situation again. A lady on the trail chatted to me and asked how I got to the trail, when I said bus she did not believe me, 'bus no longer functioning', ominous sign. Actually we chatted in dual languages for a while, she was fascinated that Australian's get more than 5 days off a year, a common conversation point when I am on holidays, always after the 'how long will you stay in Taiwan' question, but I digress.
And so there was no bus at all going back to town, so I walked another 7km back to where there were a few more buses to choose from, none of which were running to any kind of published schedule, all of which were empty.
Now onto the pics.
First I caught the BRT to the MRT. This is me driving the MRT. It is driverless, so I assumed command. I made all the noises.
After the aforementioned bus saga, I was at the trailhead for Dakeng trail #2, the most popular route.
Wait a minute, this is not the trail I remember?
Ahh yes, miles of stepping on a steep log course ahead. With the odd broken log for you to ponder how it broke, and if you would break any and therefore break a leg.
No view today, easily the worst pollution so far. All farmers smoke!
I was going quite fast, but you will see in the next few pics that those girls stayed ahead of me, in their casual clothes with a handbag, impressive.
There they are again on a brief downhill bit.
And again, they never stopped at all.
Now at the top of trail 2, and those 2 girls collapsed on the ground, looked like they might vomit, and were as red as beetroot. I told them they were very fast, using condescending man half assed Chinese. And the response from one of them was, I VERY SICK! OMG! So I felt a bit better about not catching and passing them. I do not know why they went up so fast, perhaps they were frightened of me? Generally the locals are really slow to avoid all sweating, apart from the strange men who go up barefoot with no shirt at full speed and then do pull ups whenever they pass a suitable branch.
Time to carry on along trail #5, which goes along the ridge at the top. There are quite a few pavilions with old folks hanging out, there is a road up the back of the mountain they may have used, but plenty climb up, then climb down backwards. Parts of the trail at the top seem to be gardens of sorts.
Trail #5 still has ladders to go up and down though, lots of them.
Some of these trees look like eucalyptus trees. I was trying to spot a koala. This is a rare section with steps instead of log ladders.
The best pic of the day I guess, very nice bit of the trail.
Yep, still smoky. And it drizzled rain a bit just as I finished, so some of this is mist too.
Redundant view photo.
Time to head down trail #4. Thankfully not as steep down as trail #2 was up.
The logs were sometimes closer together, but not always.
I think at least some of the flowers are wild.
Here is one of the hang out spots. As you can see, people dry their clothes. Some people were singing, possibly drunk.
Almost back at the bottom, here is a view back up trail #4.
When I crossed this bridge, I think I realised last time I went up trail #4, and possibly down #3, which I bypassed today to do a longer route. But who knows, last time I walked a long way to the start of the trail and got a bus back by accident.
The bus situation meant it was just me, and a long lonely road, back to town. That's all for now, my Achilles tendons survived.