19 May 2023
I am a very wet lunatic
Battleship rock from Qilian station
I awoke to the reverberation of the 8 million or so Taipei residents suddenly coughing uncontrollably all at once. This meant only one thing, rain. Lots of rain. This is the first day of lots of rain on this trip which seems amazing as it is a tropical island and almost rainy season.
I was determined to go hiking anyway, because you see, I am a lunatic.
Suspecting it would rain today, last night I had selected a shorter hike, close to the subway, so that is where I went.
The battleship rock hike stays down low most of the way, you shall see that there are buildings higher up the hill, and even a large sports stadium on the edge of the hike. The trail however is very spectacular, I would like to do it again in the dry one day. The actual path substance was a non slippery rock (which was greatly appreciated as a river was running down it), and my use of brackets continues to be unnecessary.
The photos today will be a bit shit, because I was in cloud and rain, and I did not want to get my camera wet, so most photos were shot as fast as possible, without care to frame the shot or get the settings right, just point, shoot, put back in bag, hope no rain got on the lense.
Well. It is raining harder than I thought. But I am here now so...
The early parts of the path were quite covered, but still very wet.
Surprise sun dial was a short diversion, but I am standing under a pavilion to take this shot. I waited for the sun but alas, it never arrived.
These rocks were also not slippery. The slipperiest part of today was the tiled footpath in the street.
A summit of sorts, with a mini radio tower. There was lightning! So I stood on the summit next to a radio tower.
Low down view, but look at the cloud and rain. Nice.
Not a lot of elevation today, and under 2 hours station to station, thankfully.
Surprise sports stadium near the top!
I think at this point I am standing on what is called battleship rock. It was a rope climb up the very grippy rock face. It was like sandpaper.
Still lots of cloud and rain.
The ridge walk would be very picturesque in better weather.
More rainy view.
You can walk all the way around that ridge back down into the hot spring area, but alas, not today. Word of the day, alas.
One last view shot. It never stopped raining at all.
The walk down this part of the trail was the darkest and wettest bit of the day.
And while my camera seems to have survived, everything in my pockets was very wet, so here is the result of all that. Also I am back at my hotel before lunch, now what?