After walking from the hotel to the entrance we are happy that there isn’t any queue or delay and we can enter quite rapidly with a mass of visitors. We are surprised at the number of visitors, Xitou is really quite popular. We choose an easy trail first, the University Pond Trail and it starts quite impressively with a beautiful hanging bridge that we really enjoy.
After enjoying the views from the bridge we continue on the beautiful trail, even though it is easy there are still stairs, there cannot be any trails in Taiwan without stairs it seems.
The forest here looks taken from a fairytale book with tall trees rising from an all encompassing fog. At least the Liocichla don’t care about the ghost forest and are just happily flitting around looking for food.
We then continue on the beautiful trail passing other groups until we arrive at the service station at the end of the trail. There is a small restaurant here but we care more about the restrooms before continuing on to explore the park.
Right here is the University Pond which seems to be a major attraction for the groups of tourists that arrive here either on foot or via the small buses to bypass the hike. Unfortunately the islands in the lake are closed so you cannot walk across the lake, maybe it is due to safety reasons given the number of people here.
There is a small pond nearby with no other visitors and here is where we see our first lifer in Xitou, the Snowy-browed Flycatcher. It is a beautiful bird and we enjoy watching it flying around as it tries to catch insects.
The area is quite beautiful however it is full of forbidden paths and forbidden things to do. No idea why the torii gate is forbidden but it makes sense to not feed the animals I guess.
There are multiple pavillions close to the lake in some scenic locations and all of them are full of groups of visitors. It seems this is a premium location and we enjoy people watching for a while before moving on.
We continue on further into the forest on the road with quite a few groups of people. However the visitors are thinning a bit compared to what was at the lake, maybe the huge spiders are at fault?
With the fewer visitors we can see a few birds also in this section with a beautiful Taiwan Barwing being quite special.. We also find a femal snowy-browed Flycatcher, quite different from the male really.
The trail we follow continues as a loop with almost no other visitors on this remote stretch. There is a large picnic area here that to our surprise has no one using it, likely this is due to the mosquitoes that attack us when we try to take a break.
With no other visitors on this stretch the birds really do come out and we enjoy seeing the White-Eared Sibias all around us as well as beautiful Rufous-capped Babbler just enjoying the reeds.
On the last stretch we meet the only other group of tourists on the trail but they are quite loud and manage to spook all the birds. At least there is no way to spook the beautiful vistas that we enjoy from the trail.
We deviate from the main trail as soon as we can to avoid the loud group and enter what seems to be a play area in the forest. There aren’t any people here but everything here is waiting for the lost tourists to swing or slide down or do whatever can be done on the other playthings we discover.
From here we really want to go up to visit the famous Ginkgo bridge. Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of signs and there are a lot of intersections. With our map and GPS luckily we find the right path every time and soon it is time to climb towards the bridge on a one mile trail.
And up we go, the trail is longer and more difficult than we expected or we are more tired than we thought. And then there are the stairs, at this poin we really are fed up with stairs even though they are quite helpful.
Finally we arrive at the top, nah who are we kidding? This is halfway maybe one third up to the top but it is the major intersection we were looking for from where we were planning to descend to the bridge.
It is also the place where we meet a huge group of school children with multiple teachers descending the same way as us like a tide. We somehow get embedded in the tide while descending and even so while dodging and trying to not get lost we see one more White-Tailed Robin, birders until the last it seems.
Down is a castle, that is under construction it seems, and a large meadow where the school groups stop so we move on as fast as we can to put some distance between us.
And then we arrive at the famous Ginkgo Bridge, a beautiful structure, and the largest wooden bridge in Taiwan according to our info. Unfortunately at this point it starts to rain and it is getting late so we decide to head to the exit.
We find what seems to be the fastest route and with the rain tapering off we can continue to enjoy the interesting artwork on the side of the road/trail without hurrying too much.
The picnic areas are spectacularly scenic here too, we are surprised that no one is using them, maybe they are too far into the park? Or the people are too scared of the coming rain? Because we are now walking through fog, or a misty rain or a mix of the two, who knows?
We pass next to some maintained gardens next and cannot resist entering them especially as it has a short elevated boardwalk.
We are glad we entered them as we see here another attentive Malayan Nightheron and a beautiful Liocichla, just sitting and observing us.
We also hear some native pigeons calling high from the trees but try as we might we cannot see them and then it starts again to drizzle so we had for the exit after a beautiful and very scenic visit. It is now time to go back to the hotel and pick up the car and then move to the Sun Moon Lake for a short visit.
