We left Dulan without regret, the town is not flash and neither was the hostel. We would have been better off staying in Yuli for a second night and maybe gone on a longer hike. Hindsight is great.
Anyway, we headed north up Highway 11. The day was overcast so we weren’t expecting great views along the way, and we weren’t disappointed. The road was good and passed mostly along the coast and through numerous small towns. Our first stop was at Sanxiantai, not that we knew what Sanxiantai is. We soon learnt that Sanxiantai is a small island connected to the main land by an eight arch footbridge, which was designed to represent a dragon. The island has three large naturally formed mounds on it, each said to represent one of three Chinese saints. It was quite a touristy affair, with souvenir shops and a large parking area for coaches (several were there). But it wasn’t too crowded, and we enjoyed the scenery and walk over the bridge. We didn’t get rained on either, which was nice.
Continuing north, our next stop was at Shitiping, yes it really is called that. This is a small fishing village so we drove off the main road to see if there were any fishing boats around to look at. There were.
Back to the main road and onward. We made a stop to buy some bread at a store as we were hungry. All they had in stock was milk bread, which was fine once we added peanut butter and Nutella. The Kraut misses German bakeries, and I sympathise. By now the weather was closing in and we had a bit of rain.
We made two or three other photo stops, but due to the weather these were brief. We were surprised by the number of Christian churches we saw. There were two churches belonging to the “True Jesus Church” church. The cemeteries also featured several graves adorned with crosses. We have seen churches in every town and city we have been to, including, of course, Tianxiang but the East Coast seems to have more than its share given its small population.
We arrived in Hualien sooner than we might have had the weather been better, but no problem. Having checked into the hostel (and getting a parking ticket while doing that – $NZ0.50) we returned the car (after 620 kilometres of faithful service) and then bought our train tickets for the next day.
When we went out for dinner the temperature had dropped significantly. The humidity was gone and walking around looking for somewhere to eat was pleasant. Especially as it had also stopped raining, for the time being at least. We are told there won’t be rain in the South, which is good as we are going that way tomorrow.
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The Kiwi & The Kraut 