Miaoli Nanzhuang Day Trip Record | Motorcycle Touring Diary

After class wrapped up at school today, a sudden urge struck to get outdoors. A classmate and I hopped on our scooters and went cruising around with no particular destination in mind. Before we knew it, we ended up in Nanzhuang and Xiangtian Lake in Miaoli—a well-known spot in north-central Taiwan Province, Republic of China, that I had never visited before.

Although I have been studying in Hsinchu City for a few years now, right next door to Miaoli, Miaoli’s mountainous backcountry remained quite unfamiliar territory to me. Visiting Nanzhuang for the first time, I discovered that the local scenery is genuinely stunning, brimming with wild natural vigor at every turn.

The photo below was taken from a bridge where County Road 124 branches off toward Xiangtian Lake. What left an unforgettable impression on me that day was the sheer volume of incidental creature-killing—truly a heavy sin on the conscience.

I have circled several dark clusters in the photo below; in reality, those are all clumps of frog eggs (staring into the distance). There were countless other frog eggs that I didn’t capture. The water here is shallow, but I dared not step in—accidentally stepping on a cluster would be thoroughly revolting.

Frankly, there was no avoiding it. A multitude of tiny black specks covered the ground, and none of us noticed at first. It was only when we stopped to take photos that we realized those little black dots were a swarm of baby toads. Seeing both moving and motionless, smudged black dots everywhere was quite a sight. Why do I say toads? Because several nearby "restaurants" had signs advertising toad meat (wait, what?)!

Below is a shot of a wooden suspension bridge taken from the concrete bridge nearby.

What amazed me was seeing a fellow and his dog actually walking across that suspension bridge. You might say that is nothing special, just a bit of swaying. But once we got close to the bridge, we saw that it was completely dilapidated; calling it a dangerous structure would actually be an understatement. Most of the timber decking had rotted away, with splintered wood everywhere. What impressed me even more was the dog—braving a bridge like that without hesitation.

The next photo captures a gorgeous view we encountered while taking a bend on the scooter, which made us pull over immediately to admire it. Looking back now, even I cannot explain why the picture turned out the way it did. When witnessed in person, the scenery was breathtakingly vivid. The photo was taken midway up the mountain road past the entrance bridge, at an unrecorded elevation. I have always wanted to purchase a GPS navigation unit with a built-in altimeter, but funds have been tight lately.

Perhaps because autumn is approaching, the composition of the mountain scenery was exceptionally captivating, giving me the impression of having wandered into a mythical wonderland (and not a Ragnarok Online map). The coordinates for the photo below are identical to the previous one, though it still fails to capture the true atmosphere (I did minor touch-ups, but overdid the foreground foliage greens).

The photo below differs slightly from the one above; here, the cloud textures come through a bit better. It was also post-processed with digital image editing software, just not quite as exaggeratedly as the prior shot.

Ah, how I would love to live deep in the mountains—even better if accompanied. My lifelong ambition has always been to buy an uninhabited island, settle down, and lead a life entirely aloof from the world.

The latitude and longitude for the photo below are the same as above, but the scenery was even more magnificent in person. Sometimes I truly envy the indigenous residents; they simply arrived a few years earlier on the island of Taiwan, and today everyone is an equal citizen of the Republic of China. Yet they receive bonus points on exams, special scholarships, can legally possess hunting rifles, and reside in mountainous reserves requiring Class-A mountain permits for outsiders to enter. Quite a few are fairly well-off, and I bet fewer suffer from genuine poverty than folks on the plains.

Below is Xiangtian Lake itself. When I first caught sight of it, I could hardly believe my eyes. I turned around searching for where Xiangtian Lake might actually be, yet found nothing else. It was only when we returned to campus that my friend confirmed: yes, that was indeed it!

To be honest, no matter how you look at it, it hardly looks the part. It looked remarkably like the chemical waste pond back at my old school. If anything, that chemical retention pond was prettier, because whatever waste we produced in chemistry lab was drained out there, shimmering in all sorts of vibrant colors (just kidding).

Take a look at the photo below. Doesn’t it look just like a lake in an ordinary city park? Was it really worth riding all the way up to an altitude of 833 meters just to see this kind of lake?

I wonder what fishing here would be like, or what kinds of fish survive at this altitude. I forgot to bring a fishing rod anyway. But you can take a guess: even if I had brought tackle, would I actually have cast a line?

The answer is an absolute no. I had no desire to get chased down and beaten; who knows what peculiar local taboos people living around the lake might observe (flashing a disdainful materialist smirk).

Mizuc Group Touring Log

• Travel Date: Wednesday afternoon, November 20, 2002.
• Party Size: 3 people.
• Transportation: Scooter.
• Route: Hsinchu Xiangshan Dormitory ⇌ Nanzhuang Xiangtian Lake (111 km round trip).