lost or what?

Here is Jiaoxi station, it is 2 stops over from Yilan, about 10 minutes, the trains come regularly. But there is a problem, no matter how hard I tried, I could not stop my camera from fogging up! Hence the surreal like dreamy quality of this photo, people would pay money for a lightroom preset that does this.

No bus. And there are no early buses it seems. Weird on a Saturday, I know this will be an extremely popular hike.

Stage one was to walk through the really quite nice and unexpectedly large town of Jiaoxi, a hot spring town it seems. More pics on the way back. There are some big hotels and a golf course as you start to go up the hill.

This is a dam. There are signs everywhere telling you not to swim in the dam. Look closely though and of course, there is a woman swimming in the dam. In Taiwan, signs are suggestions at best.

The next stage of the hike takes you up a scooter accessible path to the Catholic Sanctuary of our Lady of Wufengqi. This has been constructed in a style to entice the local aborigine population to become Catholics. Yeah, that is probably a true fact.

A bit more of the cool church, you will see it again on the way back.

Here is my church. Not a lot of members lately.

The next stage takes you along a gravel track, without steps, to this point, the start of the Marian hiking trail, where a lot of steps will commence.

There are waterfalls.

And lots and lots of slippery steps. I was moist, everything was moist, my bag was dripping with moistness, so was my camera. It was kind of hard to take photos due to everything being slippery and wet, but at least my lense was not fogging up anymore.

After at least an hour of steps, if you go at full idiot speed like I do, you come out into the cloud and the low bamboo area.

This is where 99% of the crowd stops, for the shot of matcha mountain, see below. There is a toilet there I think, I sweated so much no one could tell if I had wet my pants anyway so I did not need to use the actual toilets.

Matcha mountain in all it's glory.

The alternate aspect of matcha mountain. White balance seems a bit warm.

Me, with dirt on my pronounced forehead.

The less matcha-er-ry bit of matcha mountain.

I ascended the little lookout bit, this is not the top, and not the end of the hike.

First I had to stare at this guy and contemplate why everyone aspires to be nailed to a cross as the ultimate achievement in human history. I imagine this perplexes the locals more than it does me.

I will now go up there to the actual top. I kind of had regrets about this, as the path became ankle deep mud. I had to put my camera into my bag properly as if I fell over it would get mud-logged.

There were 1000 groups of people who went to the Matcha view, there were maybe me and 2 other groups that went to the top of Sanjiaolunshan. They had machetes! This is the summit, not a lot to see. I was a bit concerned about snakes as I could not see my feet due to face high grasses, but also ticks, do they have lime disease here? It seems to be a USA only disease for some reason.

For the treacherous journey back down through ankle deep mud, the fog rolled in.

Nice cloud, nice view, fog still on it's way.

Behold, fog. Thankfully it arrived after I was out of face high grass and ankle deep mud.

I stopped for a muddy shoe shot. I just spent an hour in the hotel shower cleaning them. I am glad I opted for my water proof hiking shoes for this trip. They make my feet hot, but its better than squishing mud between my toes for 10km on the way back down.

It was now hot, and foggy, but no rain at all.

I arrived back at the jungle foresty area, with the slippery steps. Still lots of people.

So green, lots and lots of people.

I forgot to show the trail marker on the way up, so here it is on the way down. Kind of looks like an inverted crucifix. Interesting.

Here is some more of the church, On the right edge there is a fake cave made out of concrete. You can never really fully take Taiwan out of any situation.

There is no one at all inside the actual church, just me and my muddy shoes.

Behold, the view back down to... somewhere between Jiaoxi and Yilan.

As I exited the hiking area, a lot of vendors had since set up their stalls for the day, mainly selling fruit, which I never really understand, it would be fruit puree by the time you get to the top.

Instead of some questionable fruit, I headed to the convenience store, and had an ice cream. This dog lives in the store. A rare kind of dog in that he did not immediately attack me.

And now, for my last shots from a long day, a couple of shots of Jiaoxi.

The busy street here looks much like the rest of Taiwan, convenience stores as far as the eye can see.