02.27.07
Da Keng Scenic Area
The kids and I went hiking at the Da Keng scenic area about a week ago. Da Keng is about 20 minutes from where we’re living - a steep 20 minutes on the 50cc scooter. Malachi takes the back and Maliah the front, with me wedged between them working the controls. Malachi and Maliah have some sweet helmets, and they really liked gaining speed on the flat stretches to carry us into the hilly parts.
On the way up to Da Keng, we hit a few sections of road that the scooter almost had to be off-loaded to keep it moving. At one point, we decided to stop for a bit along the side of the road to get a drink. No sooner had the kids disembarked, then I see three dogs racing up a side lane at us at top speed. Not wanting to wait around to see if the dogs were friendly or not, I told the kids to get back on the scooter and we kind of limped off up the hill. The dogs gained on us for about 50 meters,
but ‘old faithful 50cc finally gained enough speed to outrun them. All the while Malachi was looking back laughing like a maniac at the excitement/fear/jubilation of the whole escape. In the end, we made it to the trail head without further incident - there was some really neat giant bamboo growing there.
The trail went about1.2 kilometers along an ascending ridge, and joined another trail at the top of the hill. Since the hillsides were quite steep along the sides of the path, and the path climbed pretty hard in some places, the Taiwanese park service had installed thousands of logs to form a type of path along pretty much the whole length.
Malachi was a wild man - at first I thought I was going to have to really work at getting him to hike even part way up the hill, but he got it in his head that he was going to hike a mile (”5280 feet, Dad” - he says) and he would always be waiting for Maliah and I when we crested the next rise in the trail. Maliah did great as well - she probably hiked about 1/2 of the distance herself.
Anyways - if Malachi had his choice, we would have hiked all of the way around to the next trail and walked back on the road, but since we were low on water, Dad made the call to go back. Had a great time - if you’re ever in Taiwan, it is a fun weekend excursion. Tons of Taiwanese are out and about on the trail decked out in the latest survival gear and having a great time with the scenery, comradery and exercise.
All for now…
