Taoyuanli Forest Trail

At the northern end of Baguashan (八卦山) on the edge of the city of Changhua (彰化市) is a hilly terrace called Taoyuanli. Lying behind the Changhua University of Education, Taoyuanli is dotted with hiking trails and makes an easy escape from the city. The area used to be known as kang-a-lai, which means “inside the cave” in Taiwanese. There are numerous trails and multiple entry points to the trail system. The trails aren’t long, but the way they meet and diverge means that it’s easy to hike a couple of different trails without too much backtracking.

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A short 15 minute walk from my apartment saw me at the Changhua University of Education. One of the trail access paths starts here, and so this is where I began my afternoon of hiking. As the path, at this point a small lane started, I could still hear the sounds of the city – traffic, KTV and garbage trucks. Within a couple of minutes though, I found myself strolling along a dirt trail lined with trees bearing starfruit and listening to the birds and insects.

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The path split into three different routes, but all were bound for the same place – the Sancing temple, one of the main access points to the trail system due to its carpark.

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The trail I’d been on was officially named “Access Trail”, but with my arrival at the temple I was now entering the proper hiking area. I headed down the “Forest Trail”.

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Unlike a lot of hiking trails close to Taiwan’s cities, the trials here are narrow dirt paths for the most part rather than wide, paved paths. A definite plus, as far as I’m concerned.

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The forest trail lead down to a narrow suspension bridge. Barely wide enough to stand on, it was swinging in the breeze as I walked across the rope.

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A short walk onwards brought me to Shelong Dam. This is not a water reservoir type dam but a Gabion Dam. A Gabion dam is made from stones measuring 20-40cm in diameter placed into a galvanized wire mesh. These baskets are then piled up to form the dam. The dam helps to reduce damage to the surrounding environment by controlling erosion and inducing the growth of ground cover. In time, they also become a habitat for lizards and insects due to their porous structure.

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The trail continued upwards bringing me to another access point for the whole system. A couple more trails were off to the other side of the access road, however it was getting late so I didn’t take them, choosing instead to follow the access road back into the forest as it looped around to take me back towards the Sancing temple. While the trails themselves headed down under the tree line, the access path traced the ridge, giving some nice views of the sky.

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Back where the access road rejoined the forest trail, I had the choice between turning left and retracing my steps to the Sancing temple, or going right and leaving by a different route. I went right and soon found myself amongst a banana plantation.

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Continuing along, I came to the Dongshan temple. Not overly impressive itself, but there were some interesting Japanese style lanterns lining the road.

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I kept following the road and soon found myself in familiar territory, approaching on of my favorite parts of Changhua, the big Guanyin temple.

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Next to the Gunayin temple is a memorial park that is always peaceful and quiet, and which marked the end of my days hiking.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 20th, 2007 at 8:44 pm and is filed under Travel and tagged with Photoessay, Photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.