Sun, Sand and National Parks... Kenting!

So from Hualien, I had to head to a place the last hostel owner recommended a place called Kenting. Its basically the furthest south you can possibly get on the main island of Taiwan. Its also known as the Taiwan Bali, a surfing town and area.

To get to Kenting, I had 2 choices from Hualien. I could take a 7 hour slow train to the south or double back all the way to the north in Taipei then take the bullet train down the west side and only take 4 hours… I chose the bullet train option.

I arrived in Kenting later that day and went immediately to the beach, I hadn’t been to the beach since Korea and the water was a warm welcome.

That night I headed into town and checked out the local night markets, the busses don’t run on a set plan so I walked the 4km back to the hostel. On the way there was a scooter accident so I helped out and provided first aid till the ambo’s came.

Next day I went again to the beach but with someone from the hostel, the wind had started to pick up but it was a sunny hot day, perfect for the beach. At around lunchtime I moved from the beach to the hills. I hiked into the hills trying to look for a path the top of a mountain that was on my map, after 2 hours of walking figured I had passed the trail or it no longer existed. 


Not wanting to walk the 5km odd back I put out my thumb. A old couple in a farm truck stopped and I asked them for directions to the trail. 




They drove me for 20 odd minutes on a dirt road to the trail. Only problem was it was closed for quarantine or something.  
So I started my way back to the hostel.

The following day tired of walking and hiking I rented a scooter. I had never ridden a scooter before let alone started one. My license was expired, and I had no international drivers license with me. Perfect mix! I drove around all day seeing lakes and beaches. It was extremely windy so I started to drive inland. I headed up the road I had walked the previous day. To my dismay about 1km further up the road was a national park recreation area.

I stopped in at the recreation area and started walking up the trails. The park had lots of small caves and walking trails. The caves were nothing overly special but the park was laid out nicely so you could walk 1 way and see everything.


There was a lot of very old trees and a number of narrow passages through what looked liked lava formations but apparently it was coral reef thats been pushed up to form the island.

About the middle of the park was a tower 7 story high, it gave a 360 degree view around the national park and it surroundings.

Monkeys!!

On the way out of the park the tourist groups had started to arrive, the road leading into the park had 2 forest paths on each side, the tourists were all on 1 so I went to the other side. On the side I was on there happened to be a pack of wild monkeys playing in the tree. I stopped and spent a good 10 min watching them before they disappeared not a single other person sight but I could hear the tourist groups still.

Leaving the park I headed down the coast eventually reaching the southern most point of Taiwan. It was marked by a sculpture and a plank. Both of which was over run by tour groups pushing and shuving each other out of the way... so i bush bashed a bit and walked to the coast line in front of the sculpture and took a picture of them all. :)

That night, I headed on my scooter to the natural fire pits. A area where natural gasses from the ground seep up through cracks and are on fire creating natural fire bowls. Apparently its better in the winter and spring as the rains fill in all the small cracks and leave the large main one raging. I left the pits just on sunset. I didn't want to ride the scooter at night if possible...

My Buddy.

My final day in Kenting I had organized to go scuba diving.

The dive sights were local places just off the coast near a marina. Both sights were within a fish/nature reserve.

The first of the 2-dive sight was nothing special. 

Lots of old coral and very few fish. It was a easy 40 min dive with us following the marina wall along and then doubling back around. 



My guess was my buddy was making sure I knew what to do and didn’t want to do anything to deep.  
As we were doing our decompression stop I noticed another diver below us with a re-breather nitros unit. I had never seen one before other than in movies and it looked very cool.

The second dive was off the beach this one was much more interesting with load of fish. They didn’t seem a bit scared of us either coming right up to my mask and if we stopped they were taking small nibbles at the wet suites. The coral here was also much brighter and full, less damaged. 

That afternoon I spent my last evening on the beach relaxing.

Tomorrow I head to Tainan. Kenting has been fun.