The Danshui River System

[giddy-up]

Several major tributaries flow from the lush, mountainous areas surrounding the city of Taipei to form the Danshui river system. The river continues, frequently neglected and quite unnoticed it seems, on it's way through one of the most densely packed regions on earth before finally emptying into the Taiwan Straight, close to the northern tip of Taiwan.

We will begin at the mouth of the river, on the east side, and photograph it section by section until we return back to the mouth, but on the west side. This is a photograph of our ultimate destination, taken from the east side of the mouth of the Danshui..



It will take a few years to reach this destination and on the way there will of course be city sections and industrial sections, but I hope eventually to be able to focus on the jungle sections. The Zhakong segment, for example, will follow the Fu-ba trail 18KM through pristine tropical forests between the villages of Fushan and Lala Shan, with a significant gain in elevation, taking us from tropical to temperate rainforest. There is a chance of observing and photographing wild boar, monkeys, flying squirrels and a host of other creatures.

It is July as I write this however and not the best time to be tackling such an ambitious hike. Taiwan is a hot and humid place in the summer. It makes sense to start with the easy to access places, and that brings us back to the mouth of the Danshui, east side...

Old friends perhaps?



A fishing boat entering the river...



A couple of shots from the village of Danshui itself....





From the ferry to Yuren Matou (Fisherman's wharf)...



And finally, another shot taken at night. This one looks like a little acid may have dropped on it...

[giddy-up]

Our next stop comes to us courtesy of a blustery day at Guandu. Guandu is a nature preserve a few kilometers upstream from Danshui. It is easy to find as it is quite close to this place (it's actually a waste incinerator, that's a revolving restaurant at the top)...




The day I was there the sky looked like this...



So it wasn't long before I was hiding under a bridge looking at this....



It wasn't long though till the sun came out again, so I climbed up on the same bridge and clicked this one...



Even the birds came out...



If you make it to Guandu don't forget to catch the river boat races...

[giddy-up]

This brings us to our first major tributary, the shuangxi. Headwater...



A little ways downstream...



Paging Mr Brando...



Fixing the river...



Optical illusion (this photo was taken looking downstream)...



Another from along the same stretch...



Housing...



This woman has very small arms...



The river wanders on...



And grows fatter...



The confluence of the Shuangxi and the Huangxi (our next destination)...



And for the die hard purists, the actual spot where the Shuangxi empties into the Jilong



Oh, and one more from along the Jilong. The Grand Palace...

[giddy-up]

Our next tributary, the Huangxi, is actually a tributary of the Shuangxi, which in turn is a tributary of the Jilong which actually "is" a direct tributary of the Danshui.

It does get a bit complicated.

Anyway, the Huangxi flows down from Qixingshan, a semi-dormant volcano located in Yangmingshan national park.

I hiked up the back of Yangmingshan....



and back down to the headwater of the Huangxi. It looks like this...



It picks up a bit of steam as it flows past town...



and over some cliffs...



Looking down on the stream from the Tianmu trail...



An abandoned house along the trail...



Through Tianmu...



Under the bridge...



To the confluence of the Huangxi and the Shuangxi...



Looking back...

[giddy-up]

Back upstream a bit, to the mouth of the JIlonG, as seen from across the Danshui....



Getting late as we come up river...



Bridge to...



Next day we get on the bike...



There is an extensive systems of bicycle trails along the lower reaches of the Danshui.

That photo was taken just below this place (the Grand Palace Hotel)



DaZhi Bridge...



Looking back at the Grand Palace Hotel from the Dazhi bridge...



Across the JIlonG towards Neihu.



Highway along the JIlonG..



Public transit crosses the river



Switching to the train...



Village along the tracks..





Upstream the river separates from the main rail line (there is a spur that runs along it)...



And this brings us to the end of the JIlonG part one. Part two will take us from here to the headwater(s).

[giddy-up]

I had seriously intended to keep this article in order. That is I was going to keep moving in a clockwise direction, completing one tributary before moving along to the next, but I came across a place today that was just too beautiful not to share immediately.

That is honestly how I feel.

The place is qingshui park. It borders Sanchong in a strange U shape that takes it from the Danshui river, just upstream from Taipei bridge, "back" to the Danshui river across from Guandu.

The creek that flows through the park is called the wugu.



The entire area is a massive floodplain with wetlands, farms, sports fields and ponds.

It is flanked on one side by Sanchong and on the other by an enormous expressway..





It is an odd juxstaposition of nature and engineering that somehow really works.





Lotus Pond...





Goats...



Along the way someone built what appears to be intended to be a wading pool.



A view acroos the wetlands toward Sanchong..



Sunken dragon..



Water sports...



The obligatory sunset shot...



What a lovely day that was. What a lovely place.

[Lovett]

Nice article mate!

[giddy-up]

Thanks man.

This project is like a whirlpool. My whole life is being sucked into it. When kdk first asked me to start a Danshui thread here at TaiwanTrek I jumped at the opportunity. Little did I know how all encompassing it would become. From this I got the idea to complile a photo-album as well. There is description and commentary, of course, and that version is translated to Chinese (fifteen pages so far). I tape record the Chinese version and listen to it whenever I go out to take pictures. I have a language exchange set up to do whatever translations I might need. Then there is all the time I spend googling this and that and travelling to various places on the river, uploading the photos etc.

You might quite likely ask, is it worth it?

Absolutely.

I have been in Taiwan for a long time and this is by far the best method I have found for discovering new, interesting and beautiful things about the place I live.

I am a little stuck just now because the weather isn't really co-operating. I would like to get up and do the upper section of the JIlonG, but when it's cloudy in Taiwan it's REALLY cloudy in the mountains. I am getting some great photos of the flood plain which I may post shortly if I can't get up to there.

[giddy-up]

Well, the sun finally cleared enough that I was able to get to the top half of the river. You might recall that we are on to the train at this point. They kicked me off for some reason and so I was able to get this one...



I don't think you are supposed to walk through the tunnel but everyone else was doing it so I did too.

Upstream from the tunnel we come to some waterfalls. It is reputed to be the highest waterfall, or the one with the most water flowing over it, or some other superlative reated to it's greatness, but I forget what. There is a fence around it and you have to pay to get in. Being myself constitutionally incapable of paying to see a waterfall I snapped this one through the fence...



If you continue along the tracks you come to this lovely location...



You can leave the train tracks and take the trail...



In awhile you come to another set of falls...



And another...



Yet another...



Bridge.



As part of local ritual it is customary to burn vegetation rather than compost it. This of course does much to lend the area a "rustic" feel.



Chicken?



The next village upstream...



Tributary...



Location is everything..



Up...



And away...



Big nose mountain...



The narrow widens..



Further up..



Beyond here it becomes difficult to ascertain the main headwater or source of the river and it is with some considerable embarassment that I admit that "headwater" is not in fact a "real" word. If you consult a dictionary you will discover for yourself that the the correct term, the one that actually makes sense, is "headwaterS". Rivers here branch out like trees and so nowhere should this be more obvious than in Taiwan.

Also, I did an etymology search on the word "headwaterS" and find that it is not listed. It is in fact impossible to determine the origin of the word "headwaterS" and this is an irony in which I intend to soak.

Nevertheless there is a sign indicating headwater (shui toU - literally, water head). You can find the sign at this place...



Rivlet..



Looking back...



The trail..



Leaving the trail...



Death..




Monet...



One of the HeadwaterS (or VERY close thereto)...



You can of course follow another branch of the river and look for another headwater. I did and found this....

[giddy-up]

Today's adventure comes to us by way of the Gan Zhen Lin, a tributary of the JIlonG. It flows into the JIlonG just downstream from the village of Ling Jiao. You can get to Ling Jiao by road or by rail. From there it is a short bicycle ride to the Gan Zhen Lin.

Here it is from the main highway.



I had no idea what I was going to find but it looked interesting so I made a day of it and rode my bicycle up the road that runs alongside the river.

Honestly it seemed a bit boring at first and I was wondering if I had not made a mistake in choosing to explore and photograph this particular river. I'm a bit like hunter on these little excursions and it really frustrates me if I sense that I'm not going to "get" anything.

It wasn't five minutes latter though and I bagged this baby...



Here he is again with his buddy...



A couple of minutes later the road comes back down to the river. It was certainly surprising to see this...



And another....



The river...



Open floor plan...



The forest opens up a bit...



And we come to the fish farm...





Kiss?



The fish farm of course explains the carp downstream. I have no idea whether this is good for the ecology of the stream or not. Probably not. I haven't seen carp in any other streams in Taiwn.

Anyway, they were fun to play with. They are so stupid that every time you approach the pond they think it is feeding time. You can turn away and approach them five seconds later and they'll come back again. Naturally that was only good for a few minutes entertainment so...

back on the road.



Next thing up is an old rock house...



Likely quarried from the creek...



You can probably tell from the volume of water in the creek that we are approaching the source. We have made quite a substantial gain in elevation at this point actually. Another kilometer or so and we come to the end of the road...



The creek flows past this house. I followed it upstream a bit from there...

[img]http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt274/bobalogalogalog/DSC06654.jpg[img]



It gets a bit hard to follow from this point...



And the night?



It was approaching so I hopped on my bike and had a fun 15K or so ride back to the trainstation.

Gorgeous day. Absolutely magnificant. I'm sure that the photos don't begin to do justice to the place, to how remote it feels up there.