Continue with the trip.

Mike King Log 29th Jan. 06.

I'll just pick up from where I left you on the mountain trip which was at the mountain hotel at Wulu.

After we checked in Liam and I decided to groove on down to the hot spare. They have built this amazing rock pool divided into two. Hot and beautiful. It is called a therapy pool and man Mike King just floated and enjoyed the therapy. The hot section was about as hot as the hottest bath that you could possibly stand. Just lovely to submerge the whole body and feel the heat come in from every point.

I get chatting to a Taiwanese couple with a couple of young boys about 3 & 5. Really friendly guys. They seemed a little uncomfortable that Liam was naked and I was in my undies but probably forgiving as we were foreigners. Maureen came down a little later and joined in on the conversation. She also told me about the swim wear rule on the sign. Oh well, can't read mandarine.

Liam was being a little bit too daring and climbing up the high rocks over the pool. He stood up on the ledge looking over the pool with a big grim on his face. The little three year old yeled out "Now cur lien. Wakowli Ih Oooh!" I had no idea what he was saying but repeated it as it sounded very funny and very cheaky. Liam started saying the same words out loud making all of the pool attendies laught loudly. "Now cur lien. Wakowli Ih Oooh!"

We packed up and back to our room to relax. Maureen then translated for me. The little boy had said: "Oh! I don't believe it. How clever to do that." Maureen had heard the same saying on a recent advertisement that he must have picked it up from. Kids are so funny.

Ok, So I spent that night getting theblogup to date and will now continue with what I woke up to. I couldn't wait to see the gorge in front of our window and woke up to a fully fogged in window. I gave it a wipe with the towel and could finally get a look at the gorge and across to the other side. At first appearance it didn't look all that spectacular but as I started to get what I was looking at into proportion I could see that what looked like small bushes were in fact large trees. This was an immense valley. We rocked down for breakfast looking through at the same view and all I kept waying was "My God!" "Man!". This location is unbelievable. After breaky we took a walk out over the suspension bridge. Maureen tried to pike out but I wouldn't let her miss out. From the middle of the bridge we could see, what had been cut in for tens of thousands of years, beautiful flowing cascade though water from rock pool to rapid and so on down the valley. Occasionally on the side you would notice smaller pools that seemed to be a goldern yellow colour. Out Taiwanese friend that we met last night told us that these were hot pools on the side where hot spring water comes out. You could just spend the day down there hopping from pool to pool with a packed lunch. By the way, the Hotel at Wulu was called Tien Long I think.

Ok, so time to hit it and on with the trip. I was very enthusiastic of the possibility of finding some surfing breaks as I had further down the coast in 2000. I had read on the net that there are plenty of surfing breaks and not a surfer in sight.

We drove down though beautiful valleys, through tunnels and then eventually just seemed to pop out on the coast. WE hit a vista looking out through a river mouth spanned by a bridge and what looked like about 4 to 5 foot sets were rolling through. The wind was a little cross shore but you would be able to pisk off some nice ones. We turned right and headed North. On the map I could see a place called Sun Shien Tai. A nice little pinnacle sticking out from the coast which showed a great possibility of a point break and protection from the cross wind. As we drove closer I could see more and more that the conditions were set up for left handers off this point. We drove in level with the point and from the highway I could see left handers peeling off a point break. " Oh Yeh!" Maureen was amused at my excitement. To my pain we had to go to the touro location first to get some food. Pretty cool fresh seafood snacks. Determined I then steared Maureen down a little road which I felt was headed to this point break. We drove into a little road and through the coconut trees I could see lovely smooth conditions and smaller waves peeling though that looked like between sets. One fisherman was just leaving with what lookedlike an empty basket and I stepped onto one of the boulders approximately mid way along the point. Poised with my video camera ready to catch proof of more nice, untouched waves on the East coast of Taiwan. While waiting for the sets I scanned the point with my camera. It appeared about 300m long and really is the picture perfect point with boulders edges and laced with coconut trees. "Here they come" I said to myself and about 4 nice size sets rolled through. I waited for the third in the set to focuse my camera. Alright! Now I have evidence of another nice break here in Taiwan. A lonely one at that. This is jsut how I found the nice left hand tube on Green Island 5 years earlier.
Ok, evidence on the camera and Maureen and Liam ready to hit the road, off we go with one happy little adventurour. I have a feeeling that the rest of the trip is going to be lovely sight seeing for Mum and the Mums of the world. We'll see, I may be very surprised.

Cheers fornow, Mike King.