The Wulai Adventure
So Alisha had the grand idea to go on another waterfall hike. Of course I didn't have any objections because I love waterfalls - they combine all the action and adventure of rocks, water, and falling. This particular hike would have three spectacular waterfalls and natural crystal clear pools to swim in.
In order to get to Wulai we had to take the 908 bus to the MRT, then take the MRT to the end of the green line, take a 40 minute bus ride on the 1060, and then take a 15 minute taxi ride to the national park. Overall it took us 2 hours of travel to get there, but the entertainment we received on our taxi ride was well worth the trip. Our taxi driver was a rather rotund fellow who wore a straw hat accompanied by a red, white, and blue spandex tank top. If that wasn't enough weirdness for us, the dashboard of his cab was filled with inappropriate wooden bobble head dolls. I got some great footage of him saying goodbye to us when we left his cab.
Once we arrived, I couldn't wait to get some awesome footage on my video camera with the new steady cam I made, thanks to this website (http://steadycam.org/). The steady cam was a pain to carry around with its five pound weight and metal-pipe bulkiness, but I thought it would be worth it to get some great waterfall shots. It was a rather easy walk to see the first two dramatic waterfalls located right on the main path. The cooling effects of the waterfalls felt amazing considering it was a 95 degree day with 90% humidity.
We then went off the main path towards the third waterfall. We had just started our hike when a horrendous mishap occurred: I lost my camcorder. I was unscrewing it from the steady-cam and on the last, fatal turn it slipped out of my damp palms and shot straight down an escarpment. I guess I should have predicted it. I was covered in sweat and the air was so saturated that I couldn't get a good grip on the camera. Add this to the fact that I was inching my way down a slippery ledge and mostly focusing on not falling down it myself. As you can imagine, I was a little upset about the whole situation. Not only did I lose my camera, but I lost all the great footage I acquired from our day- not to mention all the work I put into getting the supplies and building this steady-cam that I now had to carry around for the rest of the day without any camera.
After about 10 minutes of me seriously contemplating risking all to fetch my camera, we decided to try to make the best of the rest of our day. After all, it's only a camera and I can always buy another one (plus I now have an excuse to get an HD one). We continued on our hike that got progressively harder. The mountain seemed to continue on forever and the trail was very steep. After a strenuous, drenching, hour and 1/2 hike, we reached the end of our trail and were greeted with a sign that was mostly in Chinese but had a small portion in English that read: "This is the end of the Green Shower trail. Please turn around." Alisha and I were so upset we didn't know what to do with ourselves. Where was the waterfall? Where was the crystal clear pond that we could swim in? What was the whole point of that difficult hike? We were very upset with our day at this point so we turned around and basically fell down the mountain. Once we got back to our original trail we searched in vain for any other way we could take to find our magical swimming spot. We even tried to follow the vague directions given to us by our guide book and fellow bloggers on the internet, but there seemed to be no way to continue. After about an hour of exploration, we gave up and decided to go home.
Overall the trip wasn't a bust. We were able to see some remarkable bugs, prove to ourselves we could hike a difficult trail, and take in some fantastic waterfalls and grand scenery, but after sacrificing my camera to the mountain ghosts and not finding our swimming pond, we were a little disappointed.
1 comments:
"Turn Around" meant that the waterfall was directly behind you, that's an easy one. Of course you'll have to hike back up the mountain and take a picture to prove me wrong, and in the process probably lose your new HD camera...
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