bed!!

The next day we headed down the valley to do a couple of walks which were in the tourist guide. The first one went up above the road in the gorge, over the tunnels, and through a really nice woodland, and was generally quite excellent, although a little short at not quite two kilometres. So that filled up all of half an hour, and then we had to walk a few km down the road to the next walk, which was called “The tunnel of nine turns”. By this time the weather had turned much windier and colder and it got to the point where it was quite unpleasant just walking in it. The walk turned out to be the old road before a new tunnel was built, and although the gorge scenery was impressive, it wasn’t so much different from what we’d seen already, and certainly not as good as the walk the day before. After walking back up to our hostel, and basically having to get under our blankets at half

past four just to keep warm we decided that one way or another we couldn’t spend another night here, and I went to check out our options. There were basically two - we could go further up the gorge to another hostel, which was at a significantly higher altitude, and therefore likely to be colder still!! Or we could go back down to Hualien, which although a city, was at sea level, so we stood a much better chance of being warm. We opted for the latter!! It’s not that we mind it being cold - we’ve done plenty of that in Norway and Tibet. It’s just that when there is nothing around the area to do, and the room is horrid, it soon gets pretty miserable!! The hostel in Hualien had online booking and there was a coin operated internet terminal at the five star hotel so it was all sorted pretty quickly!! Although the scenery of Taroko gorge had been pretty amazing, we were pretty glad to be leaving. That night was the coldest yet, as the skies had cleared and the temperatures tumb