There is no time for a special breakfast on mothers day, as we have to check out and start our Taiwanese road trip as early as possible now that our rental car (a Nissan station car) is parked around the corner of our Taipei apartment. Moreover, we’re not too sad to leave the cockroach house. Finally, we know the Chinese as being outgoing early birds, the Taiwanese might not be very different and as we have a Sunday packed with popular sightseeing sites in front of us, we must adapt to their culture.
We leave Taipei at 8:30 for a 30 minute drive uphill to Yangmingshan geothermal park. We smell the sulphur immediately when we exit the car. It’s a very steep climb uphill through a bamboo forest with volcanic holes on the mountain in front of us. After 500M, however, at a third of the total hike, we decide to return to the parking. It’s too steep carrying two children and with knees that have been through quite a lot the past weeks. Going down turns out to be even more challenging then going up, so we are happy with our decision.
Back at the parking, we stroll around at the visitors centre and look at all the volcanic holes that are also bubbling next to the parking. Olga loses her handbag, and Cleo is convinced it’s lost in the lava. Luckily, Tim has it.
We cannot stay long, as we have to go to Yehliu Geopark, it’s home to many strange looking rocks formed by marine erosion. It’s really hot today, and the children give up and fall asleep in their carriers. It’s really crowded in the park, but we managed to take some pictures giving the illusion we were on our own on this alien looking planet.
It’s nice to be back in our AC car. We love having a car on our holiday, it gives so much freedom! The final stop is a snorkelling stop. On our way, we pass by many other beaches where people dive and snorkel, it’s a difficult call to make: keep to our own spot, or join the crowds?
We should have joined the crowds, not sure on which research our spot was based but it was one of the most dirty beaches we have ever visited, more a landfill than a beach, it’s full of plastic waste, mostly empty bottles. But we go for a swim nonetheless, there are some small but nice rock formations with fish and plants. There are a lot of fish, but no colourful ones.
The children run around and have the time of their live and are very disappointed to have to leave.
It’s an half hour drive to our bed and breakfast in Jiufen, an old gold mine town. We pass the gold river which is literally golden and has some nice waterfalls, although it has started to rain we still have to stop for a photo.
Our B&B lies at the top of the town and we have a superb view of the town, the mountains and the sea in the distance.
Sadly this also means more descending and climbing later to get to a restaurant in the old town, old Jiufen street is a tourist attraction on its own as it’s an almost vertical street with lots of restaurants and red lanterns. It looks very exotic.
We eat traditional Chinese (mapo tofu, fried rice and cabbage) and finish everything and for the first time in a while feel like eating more. Now we have to climb back to our room while we see the white clouds blocking our views and coming rapidly our way. Thunder flashing in the distance and the rumbling comes closer each time, rain starts to fall and we just make it back in time before the torrential rain starts to fall.
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