Day 12 - Walking Through Miaoli To Gongguan, The Long Walk South In Taiwan
Day 12 - Walking Through Miaoli To Gongguan, The Long Walk South In Taiwan
This morning, after a great breakfast, we left the city of Toufen in Zhunan.
It was the weekend, and many people were out in the park in front of our hotel.
Some were doing Tai Chi exercises, others were running, using the free outdoor gym machines, or setting up for a weekend farmers market.
It was lively and nice to see the people of the city enjoying their park.
The day was very hot and very windy.
We had to hold on to our hats, as we walked towards the train station, to take the train back to where we’d stopped walking yesterday.
The temperature was in the mid 90’s, even higher with the heat index.
When we arrived at the station that we’d walked to yesterday, we did not start walking south immediately; instead we sat at the Starbucks cafe in the station and had some tea.
Finally, we left the comfort of the air conditioned cafe and started walking.
It was a scenic walk through a rural area, planted with rice fields and taro, until we entered the city of Miaoli.
From there, we walked on the busy main road, and looked at the shops, eateries, markets, tea shops, repair shops and how people conducted their lives, moving around mostly on scooters.
We entered Miaoli city from the north and walked all the way to the south end of the city.
We had planned to eat lunch at a small vegan restaurant, before leaving the city.
We passed a cool looking noodle place that had vegetarian choices, and a dumpling place that looked tempting, but continued on with the hope that the vegan restaurant would be open and serving lunch.
In past walking pilgrimages, we made a rule never to pass by an appealing restaurant or cafe, because the places that I found on Google Maps farther down the road might not even be there, or would not be open.
But this time the cafe was open, and the friendly owner served us a nice lunch and even played the piano and sang a sweet song especially for us.
She asked us questions about our walk, and other guests in the restaurant asked how it was to walk in the extreme heat.
They also told us that a typhoon was coming next week, that might drops lots of rain on us, but then they asked if we were going north or south, and when we answered that we were walking south, they said that we would probably be OK.
It was Teachers Appreciation Day in Taiwan, and the lady owner of the cafe said that she would like to gift us some free coffee, because we must be teachers.
We left the city and walked east towards our guesthouse for the night.
It was a cool and modern guesthouse, that also had a very popular restaurant serving Western food.
We walked by scenic landscapes by the river, and many of the streets had big ceramic pots decorating the sidewalks.
As always, nobody was walking on any of the streets or rural lanes that we walked on.
The wind was so strong, that we stopped to admire the wind in the green rice paddies.
It whispered and whistled and created ghostly patterns in the fields.
It was actually quite beautiful to see.
Our guesthouse for this evening is located on a mountain, which required us to climb hard at the end of the day.
Jules was walking slow and his face looked red and overheated.
He later he told me that he’d developed a painful blister on his toe, which made his steps more painful.
We counted our steps on the steepest parts of the climb, and stopped every 50 steps, taking a sip of water and pushing onwards.
Of course the biggest factor was the oppressive heat, somewhere in the mid 90’s.
When we finally arrived at the guesthouse, we were surprised to see their parking lot full and overflowing onto the mountain road.
The restaurant was full of diners and most of the rooms were occupied, because we could see the guests’ shoes outside of each room.
None of the guesthouses we had stayed at before tonight was this popular and busy.
In fact, in most places we were the only guests.
Jules asked why so many people were coming here, and we were told that many people came here to hike or to camp on the mountain on the weekends.
Our room is very modern and beautifully designed.
They’ve really built a fabulous place on top of the mountain.
We ate dinner at the restaurant, and they gifted us a big bag of snacks to take on our walk.
They did not have a washing machine we could use to wash our clothes, so I soaked our hiking shirts and underwear with a generous amount of soap, and then washed everything during my shower.
Dinner was a margarita pizza and a great salad with roasted vegetables and wild mushrooms, served with homemade sourdough bread.
We were happy that today’s walk was not too long, which afforded us the opportunity to stop for lunch, meet the locals and chat, and take in the landscape with more attention, despite walking in the heat and the strong winds.
With love,
Tali
Today’s Stats:
Steps - 23,310
Daily Distance - 16 km.
Total Distance To Date - 179 km
