This is part two in a series of posts about crossing Taiwan from west to east. Unfortunately part one has gone missing somewhere in the land where data goes to die. At this point I’m not able to recreate it so a quick summary will have to do. Basically, we took the car and drove through the mountains north of Hsinchu, following the so called Roma Road going eastward, stopping here and there along the way. Here’s my favorite photo from the first day:

That’s it for the summary, now on to the second day of the trip:

We slept surprisingly late this morning so when we got up we quickly packed our bags, checked out and went for lunch. After lunch we made a little detour up Lala mountain (such a cute name) drove through mist so thick we could barely see the road ahead of us, up to the Devine trees walking trail. Along the trail there are several gigantic cypress tress, thousands of years old. It’s pretty impressive.

Not much to say other than: impressive trees

We crept slowly through the mists back down the mountain, passed through the village where we had spent the night then headed east. Along the way we made a short stop at a small recreation area or park. It turned out to be a former presidents summer retreat. A few of his private gardens were very nice and the landscape was almost more like Switzerland than Taiwan.

  • Couple picture in the Forest Recreation Area
  • Not sure why there’s a big stick in this pond
  • Pondering a Japanese garden
  • Another big tree because why not

When we left the garden it was close to getting dark so we didn’t make any more stops. Instead we headed straight for the eastern city of Yilan on a road that could have been part of a rally stage. Though it was raining on and off during the day we still had a good time.