The Long Road Home
A belated final update for this tour...
After a few extra early days in Paris spending quality time in the Australian Embassy quickly obtaining an emergency passport and generally avoiding riots, we jetted to Taiwan for a two-week circumnavigation by bicycle.
Anti-clockwise, the route took us from Taipei down the western side of Taiwan, which holds about 90% of the population, so lots of urban travel with patches of country miles - a ride that alternated between the ridiculous...
to the sublime
But.... very hot...
We managed to scamper into our accommodation at the southern tip of Taiwan at the end of the first wek about an hour before the effects of Typhoon Champi hit
The hotel staff securing the front door for 1 1/2 days...
We were locked in for 36 hours in a hotel we named the Overlook Hotel, because its general desertion and sad fit out reminded us of the hotel in which Jack Nicholson lost his mind in "The Shining".
We were happy to move on.
The East coast was another matter, largely quiet roads on the coast
Or into the hills.
Climbing through forests with the monkeys telling each other some strange humans were slowly moving through, stunning views and generally much better riding.
A highlight was an attempt on the climb up through Taroko Gorge (on our designated rest day) and the world's longest paved road climb.
A combination of work in the morning and road closures due to road construction works,
combined with a 3:30 pm cut off to exit the park meant we only made our way up about 35 km of the climb, so avoided the need to give up a genuine attempt
What we did see was arrestingly stunning, and a bit scary
This scenery and experience held for the remainder of the ride north
as we made our way back into Taipei, where we caught up with good friends that Tony met on a live-in business course 24 years ago.
This was a big week - lots of learning about Taiwan's history and culture, big bus, big steel counter-weights that managed movement in (what was) the world's tallest building
(fellow engineers do ask me about this, you are likely to be the only ones to find this as interesting as I did)
and managing to eat our weight in dumplings, shredded jellyfish and other assorted delicacies pretty much every day
Arrived home to find our dog remembered us, our fridge had died of old age and happy to be back in familiar environments.
Already planning future adventures, promise to share.
Cheers
