The weekend following my birthday in Taipei, Amanda and I were in Taichung, with no plans in particular, and so, on a sunny Sunday, we decided to go for a long drive and explore outside the city.
In trying to decide “Where to drive?”, I had resorted to looking at pictures on panoramio and google maps, geotagged in the mountains to the east of Taichung. There was an area on the map where some great pictures were taken with beautiful views looking out on the mountains and hills as they descend down to Taichung city. It also appeared as though there was a pretty impressive gain in elevation, hence it seemed the perfect candidate for our Sunday drive.
Our drive took us out of Taichung along Wenxin Rd. and past the popular hiking trails of Dakeng Scenic Area (大坑). We also drove through an area where mushroom farms were clearly the primary industry. There were mushroom themed cafes, shops and restaurants, as well as mushroom shaped buildings, street lights and street signs. To top it off, there was even a mushroom themed Go-Kart track, but no Mario-Kart characters that we could see or speak of.
After about an hour and a half on the scooter we reached a town called Dongshih (東勢). At the turn off to Dasyue Mountain is where we really began to gain elevation. We stopped at a tea house/restaurant partway up the mountain and shared some pork and rice as well as some black tea.
After lunch we continued our drive and gained approx. 1000 metres in the space of about 1 hour. We agreed to turn around and start our way back home since the gain in elevation was accompanied by a significant drop in the temperature as well as some fairly ominous looking clouds.
The weather that day was really great and we definitely plan to repeat the drive one more time before we leave Taiwan.
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| Stacks and stacks of mushrooms to the left. |
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| Mushroom Village |
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| Go-Karts |
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| River Valley by Dongshih |
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| Amanda on the patio at our lunch stop |
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| Pork and rice for lunch |
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| Lunch with Amanda |
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| View from the cafe |
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| Zoom Zoom |
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| Zoom Zoom |
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| Zoom Zoom |
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| Zoom Zoom Zoom |
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| Zoom Zoom |
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| Oh, hi there! |
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| Brett with the Juggernaught |
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| Getting chilly, time to turn around... |
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| Hello!!!! |
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| Heading home... |
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| Back across the river valley... |
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| More river valley... |
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| We caught the sun as it was setting over Taichung City |
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| Hi, my name is Brett. I like long walks on the beach and kittens. |
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| Pretty wife eat cheese. Ok then. |
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| Just an interesting steak house in Taichung that we passed on our way back home. |
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