White Water Rafting

Trip Start Nov 17, 2006
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Trip End May 09, 2007


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Flag of Taiwan  ,
Monday, April 23, 2007

This weekend was probably the most active I've been in a looooong time! Taiwan was formed by earthquakes and volcanic action, which means there's a lot of very steep mountains. These mountains are mostly down the eastern side of the island, close to the battered Pacific coast. There's a lot to see - a famous gorge that is apparently very beautiful if you can see around the hordes of tourists, and lots of hiking. And a river you can raft down! This is what we did this weekend - a big group of 20 of us drifting down the river amid beautiful mountains covered in tropical plants.

It was quite an adventure getting there - I got the train to my friend Sara's house on Friday night after work, arriving in Ilan at 1am, eek! I like Ilan - it's on the east coast, but not so far down as the place we went rafting. There's not nearly so many people as in Taoyuan, it's quite a nice break. In the morning we got the train to Hualien, which is the biggest city on the East coast with our other friend Louise. Hualien is pretty, sandwiched between the mountains and the sea. We had a wander around, found the sea (whoo, Hualien Port!!!), sat in a beer garden for a hour or so (this was bliss, it was a perfect beer outside day, and it's very rare to find somewhere you can do it here!), then hung out in the park for a little while waiting for our next train.

The rafting was close to a small town called Ruisui, about an hour further south from Hualien. We stayed in a hostel on the main road (but that isn't saying much!), rode bikes round a bit in the dark, generally had fun. Needless to say, I fell off the bike! I got distracted by all the stars (haven't seen any in a long time) and toppled over. Now my right knee is adorned with a  beautiful purple bruise - I'm so pretty!

We had to get up super early in the morning to pile on the sun screen in time for rafting. We crammed into a couple of minibuses (completely disregarding road safety, as ever) to get to the Hsiukulan River, watched a safety demo that was all in Chinese, then piled into out boats. It wasn't the most exciting of rafting experiences - the river was very low because it's the start of the season, so it was going very slowly. The rapids weren't spectacular, and we even had to be towed a lot of the way between them because it would have taken about 3 hours longer to paddle the whole way. But, it was so much fun!! There were 3 boat loads of us, all drifting down together - there was a lot of water thrown around, lots of chat, staring around at the nice scenery, even a few mini rapids. The mountains we travelled through were beautiful - it reminded me of Canada in a strange tropical way. Maybe what the Rockies would look like if you shaved the tops off and plonked then down on the Tropic of Cancer!  It was beautiful and peaceful. I saw a photo of the launching point in a brochure though - when we went, there were our three boats just sitting by the water, but on the is photo there are lines and lines and lines of them queued up waiting to go. So although the water was low and slow, I think it was still better then if it was later in the season. You get better rapids, but you can't move for other people! Great fun...

It was a fun weekend - glorious weather, great company, and beautiful scenery. And again, all shattered by the return to Taoyuan. I should have moved to Ilan!
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