On our last full day in Taipei, we visited Yehliu Geopark.
One of the many good things of Taipei, is that it is a very well connected city. The MRT covers well the grid, there are plenty of buses to reach other areas, and trains and express buses that cover beyond the metropolitan area. Prices are very good and most of the stations and vehicles are clean and punctual.
Knowing that, there are plenty of choices if you want a day trip outside the city. One of the most popular destinations are the Taipei New Districts and Keelung. But we already had been there on our way back from Hualien, and even spent one night in Jiufen, totally worthy.
On our last full day in Taiwan, we went to the north coast, to Yehliu in New Taipei City.
It was very easy to go there. There are some buses per day that depart from Taipei West Bus Station Terminal A (located at Taipei Main Station). Go to KuoKuang window and purchase a 96 NT$ to Yehliu Geopark (้ๆณๅฐ่ณชๅ ฌๅ).
We took a quite new bus, it even had wifi! On the way to Jinshan District , the sky started getting cloudy and later it started to rain. We knew there were high chances if rain, but we really didn't believe the forecast and went anyway.
We felt lucky because when we arrived, the rain seemed almost over. So, we proceed with our trip and after exploring the port we walked a few minutes to reach the entrance of the Yehliu GeoPark.
We had seen some photos of the place and were quite excited to see it with our own eyes.
Yehliu is a long cape full of seawater-eroded holes and rocks in shapes like mushrooms, candles and ginger. It's all due to the limestone on the seashore, which is subject to marine erosion. The cape is 1700 meters long, and it all presents surface and rocks exposed to not only marine erosion, but also wind, sun, rain, sea-water and strong northeastern monsoon.
The whole park is well preserved and visitors are asked not to touch or damage the rocks.
At the beginning we got a bit disappointed. Lots and lots of big groups of tourists, and the garden of rocks wasn't that impressive. But later, towards the sea, we began seeing all the rocks formations and the spectacular colors. And then, it started raining again! This time we had to find cover because it was raining a lot. Some of the other visitors were wearing a raincoat and could still explore around, but we took a break to eat some bananas under some roof.
There was a hill named Turtle Head Mountain that seemed interesting to climb, but the stairs up were blocked, with some 'under maintenance' sign. We didn't give up and went around to find some other way up, and we did it! Some other stairs seemed to go to the same place so we started going up.
It was still raining a little but we were enjoying the views, specially because we didn't see other visitors around. It felt like we were alone exploring the hill. We made it to the observation deck and continued following some paths by the cliffs.
The scenery was impressive and at that moment it felt great walking under the rain seeing many beautiful butterflies.
We came across a few other visitors, but nothing like a big group.
After a while we headed back to arrive at the best part. The part of land made of orange limestone rocks. Those unique formations and the cloudy sky made a strange atmosphere. Most of the other visitors were leaving and for a while, we felt like astronauts exploring another planet.
The combination of the orange color and the blue (or grey) sky makes a perfect scene for landscape photos and even selfies. It's crazy the amount of photos in Instagram you can find take there!
Right after that it started raining hard again, so on the way back we found shelter in a local market selling some souvenirs like jade items, seashells and other sea related items.
By the port in front of Yehliu Geopark there are a bunch of seafood restaurants. But they were all so full that we decided to walk a bit more to where the bus dropped us. And we found a pretty good one. We tried some seafood dishes. One of the dishes was shrimps with pineapple, but it came with some sweet color sprinkle for cakes. Very weird, but not bad.
We finished eating and we got the perfect timing to have a drink. Right then, the bus arrived and we didn't have to wait at all. We headed back to Taipei while taking a very nice nap in the bus.