 |
| From Hsinchu we still followed the No 1 Cycling Route, definitely to get out of the city. After a short while, we arrived at the west coast! Yes, the sea is definitely on this picture, you'll need to focus! |
 |
| It's a very smooth and calm sea; we expected to see some beach, but that's certainly not here! |
 |
| Again, test your eyes, can you see where the water stops and the sky begins? |
 |
| The No 1 Cycling Route also follows this beautiful seaside, dedicated cycling trail; wonderful cycling! |
 |
| A little while later we left the No 1 Trail (which continued to follow coastal road 61) and it became even better. This trail is the Miaoli Bikeway and it runs roughly parallel to the No 1 but is much (like 1000 times) nicer cycling! |
 |
| Taiwan certainly does invest in renewable energy, as we could witness along the coast. There were a lot of wind turbines around here, also off shore. |
 |
| Back on the No 1 Cycling Trail, and this is how it goes most of the way: along a big and quite busy road. While the cycling lane is good and safe, it's certainly not idyllic and less pleasant cycling than the side trails we had been following. |
 |
| We decided to leave the No 1 behind and go more inland, as that seems less urban and much more attractive. We used a connector route from No 1 to the related Route No 1-2, and from the moment we left the main road we were in much nicer cycling territory! Cycling through these smaller villages, and more rural roads (with very little traffic) is much much nicer. And also, when cycling through these towns, you feel you get to see the more "real" Taiwan. |
 |
| In this area there were a lot of rice paddies, and these are being planted in this spring season. The sowing and growing of the young plants is very organised and industrialised, as you can see on this picture. All these seedlings are now ready to go out into the paddy fields. |
 |
| Our route took us to the Ming De Reservoir, where we decided we would end our day's cycling after 56km. We had found a few potential campsites and were going to check these out. |
 |
| Cycling along the small road around the lake was wonderful - although very hilly! The hills were never very long, but sometimes very steep (not on this picture)... |
 |
| More wonderful cycling near the lake |
 |
| After a steep climb... |
 |
| A Chinese cemetery along the way. Some of these tombs are so big, they could be small houses! |
 |
| Our idyllic camping spot near the shore of the lake. Even though wild camping is possible in Taiwan, we prefer to stay in campsites if possible. It's more convenient, as there is fresh water, toilets, warm showers, electricity, etc... |
 |
| A short evening stroll from the campsite with a beautiful sunset and a lovely suspension bridge over a narrow part of the lake |
 |
| View from the bridge! |
 |
| Our route today started with lots of climbing, sometimes very steep. As often, the more challenging rides are also the most interesting, impressive and memorable ones, and that was also the case today! This is the view of the place we used for our rest stop after 1,5 hours riding. Just fantastic! Someone had made a small garden somewhere along the road, surrounded by beautiful nature. |
 |
| And while the road along Cycling Route No 1-2 is also quite big, traffic is light (except for a lot of motorbikes today, probably because it's a Sunday), the road is wide, there is plenty of room for bicycles and it's just magnificent - with sometimes very high mountain views! |
 |
| As we were cycling through Shitan township, strawberry farms started to show up, and stalls selling strawberries were all over the place. These are not just small strawberry fields, they're huge! |
 |
| Strawberry fields (forever) There were strawberry fields for kms and kms, still ongoing, probably more tomorrow. It's very popular for people to pick their own strawberries (like in Cameron Highlands), so you see people in the fields with baskets everywhere. When I was 15, I did this briefly as a job student in summer, and the romantic side of picking strawberries is lost in me; it was hard and uncomfortable work... |
 |
| We simply couldn't resist the temptation and stopped for a treat (not self picked). In fact, the strawberries here are also really not expensive. |
 |
| Although, we thought this lady probably overcharged us a bit. Nevertheless, she was extremely friendly, did her best to communicate with us in English, and gave us 5 delicious oranges as an extra treat (maybe she felt guilty for overcharging us) |
 |
| Our destination for the day, Hai'an. This is at the edge of Shei Pa national park, and we really wanted to be out in nature rather than in urban area. It meant we had to cycle 12km inland on a dead end road, and we'll just need to do this in reverse tomorrow, but it seemed worth it. |
 |
| And it was (is!) worth it, although it was really tough. We knew we would have to climb about 340m in total, but thought that it would be gradual and then it would have been fine. However, it went in bouts, sometimes it was nearly flat but in other parts, up to 10% incline. It was a really tough 12km, but so beautiful, and the destination was worth it. |
 |
| Our campsite at Tenglong Village Resort. This is a covered campsite, something we're not used to but it seems to be common in Taiwan. It won't be raining tonight yet it's a convenient place. This place has hot springs, so included in the fee for our night (rather steep at 1000 TWD though) they offered us a 1 hour use of a private onsen room! Nice! We really enjoyed having a thorough bath after a sweaty and tough day on the bike, and soaking our bones in the hot water. |
 |
| Even though the tent is pitched under the roof cover, the view is magnificent. |
 |
| Even more so when an evening mist is rolling in... |