From Yushan National Park we descend back towards Alishan and hope that we can find some parking after being quite discouraged when going up. On the way we stop at a roadside stop to look for birds and while no birds are found we find a couple of yellow-throated martens, just as good really.
And we go courageously right to the entrance of Alishan and are let in, very unexpected as we thought we would have to look for parking outside. Then we go a couple times round the park looking for parking and finally find a spot. And then it is time to find the actual entrance into the forest, it is lucky we have a GPS and guess correctly where to go.
We then find a map which is quite useful in deciding where to go. We are also worried a bit that the park supposedly closes at 5PM and it is 4PM but given that there are restaurants and hotels we hope and assume that the close hours refers to the fact that they will not let any people in after that time.
First part of the trail is not exciting with the boardwalk following a very busy road so we deviate from it at the first point possible walking towards the interior. It is a good choice as it allows us to find one more endemic bird we missed till today, the beautiful Taiwan Vivid Niltava.
The trail now takes us towards the train tracks, here is the endpoint of the small train track that passes through Fenqihu, unfortunately it was impossible to find train tickets, they are booked far in advance.
In this area is also the famous, for birders, skywalk. It is an elevated boardwalk that allows you to see birds that like to live higher up in the trees. Like the beautiful Ferruginous Flycatcher we find on top of a tree, it is quite friendly and let’s us take quite a few photos of him before moving on.
Back on the ground level there are quite a few birds that even other people are noticing as they are quite tame. The Taiwan Yuhina and other tits are the preferred birds for the other visitors as they seem to really not care or even are attracted to visitors, wonder if some are feeding them?
Here we have a choice, try for a loop trail even though it might get dark soon or return via the same way we came in. Most attractions that we know about are on the loop trail and we feel quite energetic so the loop trail it is hopefully there are fewer stairs than usual. We can only hope.
While there are stairs there isn’t an overwhelming amount of them and the elevation changes covered aren’t that bad. And the forest that we enter is quite special, it seems like one of those Lord of the Rings forests where the trees can come to live at any point.
We make our way carefully towards the Sister Ponds, a couple ponds deep into the forest. At this point we are the only people on the trail and that makes the experience quite special and we really enjoy the cooler weather. We don’t enjoy the mosquitoes but there aren’t that many out there yet.
The second of the Sister Ponds is more developed and there is one couple there but this is nothing versus what we expected. It is so special to see this area without the throngs of people we expected, this certainly has an impact on our enjoyment of this magical place.
One of the attractions of Alishan are the many stumps of older trees that create fantastical creatures and objects with some imagination. Some are named but many are not leaving that to the imagination of the visitors.
There are also some funny artworks near the trail and we enjoy them as we make our way down towards the major temple located in the forest.
Shouzhen Temple is quite impressive from the outside, very ornated and likely would have been worthwhile a visit. However it seems quite closed with the parking lot being empty so we do not want to push our luck and continue on the trail.
We then pass a hanging bridge with some funny warnings. At least they do not apply now, there aren’t any 6 men to overtake on the whole trail probably. We also wonder what would happen if there are 6 women, can we overtake them?
We then pass a small trail side temple, in a quite romantic location, we stay a bit to enjoy the place before moving on.
And then we arrive at another famous location in the park, the three generation tree. Here three generation of trees have grown on each other through the centuries, with the third generation going strong.
As we start closing the loop the sun is going down and the lights are turning on on the trail. We do not encounter any issues leaving the protected area so we were right, the closing time was just for letting people in not out, phew.
We then spend some time buying groceries from the store inside the park and visit the souvenir shops while keeping an eye out for night inhabitants of the park. We find an endemic species of toad that no one else is even noticing and a Giant Flying Squirrel which similarly no one else cares about. We certainly do that especially their weird sounds that actually alerted us to their location. And then it is time to return to Fenqihu with a quick stop right before the village to listen for owls and watch fireflies. No owls but lots of fireflies. And then it is time to go to sleep after a full day, tomorrow it is time to descend and go north, our time in Taiwan is drawing to a close unfortunately.
