How to Lose Yourself and Find Peace in Sanxia District’s Forests
TEXT | AMI BARNES
PHOTOS | RAY CHANG
Sanxia is a hilly, history-rich district of New Taipei City occupying the southwestern edge of the Taipei Basin. Although connected to Taipei City by road, river, and (soon) metro line, the district is dominated by forested area — it’s the kind of place where life ticks by at a slower pace and you can while away whole weekends getting yourself happily lost among the lianas.
With the stifling heat of summer in full force, there’s just one question on everyone’s lips: how to keep cool? For some, that means plotting the swiftest route from one air-conditioned space to the next; for others, the answer lies at the bottom of a bowl of shaved ice. For me, nothing beats escaping to tree-shaded hills where waterfalls mist the air and calm the soul, but whether your preferred method of communing with nature involves full forest immersion, artfully arranged landscapes, or poolside family fun, Sanxia has you covered. Over the following pages, you’ll find three scenic spots where you can seek refuge from the Taiwan summer’s sultry city streets.
Manyueyuan National Forest Recreation Area
Administered by the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency (www.forest.gov.tw), this forest recreation area occupies 1,483ha of a steep, densely forested fluvial valley with tall peaks on three sides. Home to waterfalls, hiking trails, and wildlife aplenty, this park is well known among domestic tourists but has thus far remained mostly absent from the itineraries of international visitors. And while it’s true that getting here – be it by car, motor scooter, or public bus – entails a certain degree of organizational nous, it’s doable, and more importantly, those who take the time to figure out the logistics will be handsomely rewarded for their efforts.
Just like many of Taiwan’s more famous national forest recreation areas (such as Alishan and Taipingshan), Manyueyuan’s evolution is inextricably intertwined with the history of the land. The forest’s original Atayal indigenous inhabitants had never been particularly interested in its abundant camphor reserves, but the business-minded Han immigrants who began arriving in Taiwan during the 1600s had instantly recognized the island’s potential. At the height of the local camphor industry, around 70 percent of the world’s camphor came from Taiwanese forests, and when the Japanese ruled the island (1895-1945) they ramped up camphor extraction in the area around Manyueyuan (and several other locations), forcing the indigenous inhabitants further inland after a series of bloody scuffles.
In 1988, the tribal-hunting-grounds-turned-camphor-hub transitioned once more when it was reinvented as a place for leisure and relaxation. However, unlike other forest recreation areas with a similar backstory, Manyueyuan wears its forestry scars lightly – so much so that to a casual observer, the forests here will likely feel ancient and pristine. Still, for those with a practiced eye, the large swathes of Japanese cedars in some corners of the park speak quiet volumes.
Entry to the area is NT$100 for a full-price weekend ticket (discounts available for seniors, students, and residents of New Taipei City). Once through the gates, first-timers should make a beeline for the Visitor Center, where they will find a précis of the park’s botanical and zoological treasures split over three halls.
Although designed to be engaging for children, the bilingual Chinese/English explanations enlighten visitors of all ages. One hall is dedicated to trees and plant life – from the bird’s nest ferns that can be seen adorning elevated branches, to the Formosan begonias that stud the understory with pink, to the myriad maples that paint the forest in fiery hues each December. Another exhibit dives into the rich creekside ecology supported by the park’s waterways. Projected images of fish dart over painted floors, and interpretive texts familiarize visitors with Manyueyuan’s furred, feathered, scaled, and shelled denizens. Taxidermied specimens slink through recreated landscapes, and – on the day of a recent visit – school kids zipped around trying to match photos of animals with their preserved brethren in a race to uncover their names. The final hall introduces the park’s lepidopteran legion. Over 150 butterfly species have been recorded within the park boundaries. While the warmer months from July to September are peak butterfly-viewing season, you’re likely to spot some year-round.
A little deeper into the park is the Refreshment Station. This store is the sole on-site spot offering refreshments, and as such, it tends to pull in a sizeable crowd of chatty snackers. Offerings lean towards the Taiwan-traditional, with tea eggs, sweet potatoes, meat-filled steamed buns, rice dumplings, and braised tofu all proving popular, but you’ll also find a few varieties of instant noodles and ice lollies.
Looking at a map of Manyueyuan, you’ll notice six interconnected hiking trails. That might sound like a lot of walking, but since all bar one are sub-2km ambles, they can be fashioned into a knobbly lollipop loop with short side-quests to admire the park’s waterfalls. Such a route would allow you to see all of the main sights the park has to offer, and at just 6.5km, would be pretty easy for an averagely fit adult to complete in an unrushed half-day visit.
First up is the Ruizai Creek Ecological Trail. This 800m path sits just outside the park proper, presenting a prettier means of shuttling between the parking lot and the park entrance. The gravel trail hews close to the water’s edge, and where the reeds thin, you might catch the electric flash of a kingfisher or a plumbeous water redstart’s curious bobbing dance. Upon reaching the uppermost end of the trail, hikers will find themselves at the park’s ticket booth and the start of the plainspokenly named Hiking Trail. The initial kilometer of this doubles as the access road to the park’s work buildings, so it’s step-free and suitable for families with strollers and handicapped visitors in wheelchairs.
After passing the Refreshment Station, the difficulty ratchets up half a gear with steps and dirt trails leading to the park’s waterfalls. Chunu Waterfall sits about 500m off the main path. Fern-wreathed gazebos punctuate the steep climb, and a lookout tower beside the falls makes an excellent spot to pause, take in deep lungfuls of phytoncide-laced air (known in Taiwan as taking a “forest bath”), and let the forest work its immune-boosting, stress-busting magic.
“Chunu” is simply a transliteration of the waterfall’s name in Mandarin, but a more literal rendering might be “Virgin/Maiden Waterfall.” This draws on a local indigenous tale explaining how an Atayal clan came to settle in the vicinity following sightings of a shapeshifting deer maiden (the deer is the tribe’s totem spirit) bathing amidst the rainbow-shot spray of the falls. Deer-sprite or no, one element of this old story holds true – thanks to the serendipitous alignment of rock, water, and sun, rainbows still flicker and leap through the fine mist, and anyone who patiently watches on a sunny day can expect to be treated to this spectacle.
In contrast to Chunu Waterfall, whose full height can easily be admired, Manyueyuan Waterfall’s 20m tail is visible only in installments. A maple-framed pavilion perched at the edge of a cliff on the creek’s western edge overlooks the upper two-thirds, but to see the lower portion, you’ll need to walk over the bridge facing the plunge pool. After this, if you still have a little energy to spare, the park has one final waterfall to share. Climbing the steps on the far side of the bridge will take you up to Silver Curtain Falls. At just 2m tall, this is a baby in comparison to the park’s grander water features, but what it lacks in height it makes up for in prettiness.
When it’s time to head back, you can either retrace your steps to the entrance or take the Self-guided Trail, which descends through scenic cedar forest. Near the start of this path, you can also find the start of the park’s sixth and final trail, the Dongman Trail. Spectacular but lengthy at 16km, this trail traverses the New Taipei City/Taoyuan City border and connects to the Dongyanshan National Forest Recreation Area. While it’s certainly a worthy adventure, it’s an excursion that demands a whole day and a little preparation.
Manyueyuan National Forest Recreation Area | 滿月圓國家森林遊樂區
Add: No. 174-1, Youmu Borough, Sanxia Dist., New Taipei City
(新北市三峽區有木里174-1號)
Tel: (02) 2672-0004
Hours: 8am-5pm (weekends/holidays 7am-5pm)
IG: instagram.com/manyueyuanforest
FB: facebook.com/ManyueyuanNationalForest
Website: recreation.forest.gov.tw/en/Forest/RA?typ_id=0200001
He Xu Xiong Kong Tea Garden
For folk who favor a photogenic, curated vision of Mother Nature, He Xu Xiong Kong Tea Garden offers refined environs in which to undertake wanderings of a more genteel, camera-worthy nature. Here, deep in Sanxia’s hills (so deep that it’s only reachable by private transport), photo ops and refreshment stops are strung together by easy, well-kept paths interlacing acres of organic tea farm.
A sloping track carries visitors from the ticket-booth-turned-gift-shop (full tickets cost NT$280, NT$100 of which can be used to offset food and beverage purchases) up to the Forest Café and Sakura Arbor, two of the park’s prettiest places. Visiting the Sakura Arbor in early May, a windfall of tiny wild cherries was the only evidence of earlier blossom, but come late January, the hillside is awash with pastel sprays of pink. The arbor itself is a single-room, single-story building that looks like the result of a collaboration between Hayao Miyazaki and Moominvalley’s inhabitants. A jaunty witch’s hat of a roof dwarfs the squat structure, and the edifice sits precariously on stilts, seeming to jut out from the hillside. On gloomy days, warm light emanates invitingly through the windows – it’s precisely the kind of house a woodland elf would inhabit.
The nearby Charcoal Kiln, on the other hand, feels like it might be the forgotten lair of a goblin or troll. Situated beside a stream, the crumbling structure is clad in a shaggy coat of ferns and soft-tongued liverwort, and its arched furnace mouths gape open, revealing nothing of the pitch-black interiors. These ruins, which are remnants of tea plantation facilities built by Mitsui Norin Co., Ltd. (see pages 11-12), have been left mostly untouched, and on the ground outside the kilns, sooty shards of old charcoal still pepper the mud.
From the kiln, a short stroll through cedars leads to the edge of the tea gardens. If you notice that He Xu Xiong Kong’s tea plants look slightly different from the neat rows seen in tourism ads, you’d score ten out of ten for observational skills. Xiong Kong runs an entirely organic operation, meaning that instead of precision manicures, the shrubs sport trailing mossy beards. It also results in a much more dynamic landscape than you’ll find on most tea farms – frog-filled ponds and trees dot the slopes, and where the plantation butts up against the forest, we spotted a Swinhoe’s pheasant grubbing around in the weeds.
For anyone who, like a peckish Swinhoe’s pheasant, happens to fancy a little grub, the park has two on-site establishments. Beverages and light snacks are on offer in the minimalist rustic-chic surrounds of the Forest Café. Large windows and extensive use of wood pull the outside in, while sliding doors open onto a streamside balcony, allowing seating to spill out. The menu includes cold brew teas, a simple range of coffees including several caffeine-free options, and a tasty selection of sweets (pound cakes, Basque cheesecake, muffins).
Patrons hoping for something more substantial can amble over to the Forest Dining Hall, where floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the tea terraces, flooding the interior with natural light. It’s the kind of space that feels by turns airy and cozy depending on what the weather is doing. The menu features nourishing set meals, all of which fall squarely under the umbrella of Taiwanese comfort food – think sesame oil chicken, seabass in a soup of medicinal herbs, and braised beef noodles.
He Xu Xiong Kong Tea Garden | 禾煦熊空茶園
Add: No. 238, Zhulun Rd., Sanxia Dist., New Taipei City
(新北市三峽區竹崙路238號)
Tel: (02) 2672-6686
Admission: NT$280
Hours: 9am-5pm (closed on Tue)
IG: instagram.com/hexuxk
FB: www.facebook.com/skttc970105
The Great Roots Forestry Spa Resort
Like Manyueyuan and He Xu Xiong Kong, just an hour’s drive from central Taipei, The Great Roots Forestry Spa Resort is perfectly set up to cater to weekend vacationers seeking hassle-free, family-friendly luxury. With hiking trails, spa facilities, restaurants, an on-site store, and several accommodation options spread out over 17 lush and leafy hectares, it covers all the bases. Indeed, the place has attracted something of a cult following among staycationing Taipei families because it manages to hit a sweet spot – space to let off steam for kids, gentle puttering in beautiful scenery for grandparents, and somewhere for overstretched couples to indulge in a little light extravagance.
Hidden in almost every corner are nuggets of beauty and delight. Fishponds teem with plump koi, and sculptures from local artists invite admiration. Younger family members, meanwhile, will be keen to embark on a dinosaur-hunting safari. A Triceratops presides over the main gate, greeting guests as they enter, and someone was being very intentional when a Carnotaurus, whose name means “meat-eating bull,” was designated the guardian of the barbecue pits. Even as a (somewhat) sensible adult, I couldn’t help but feel a residual stab of childish awe when the Tyrannosaurus rex juddered into eye-rolling, tooth-baring life.
Imagination primed and stocked full of terrible lizards – it’s the perfect time to set off on an exploration of the resort’s hiking trails. The paths are shaded by precisely the kind of lush forest that could believably harbor a Hadrosaurus or give refuge to a Rhabdodon. However, you’ll be pleased to hear the only genuine dinosaurs still living in this pocket of Sanxia are the ferns, which deck the slopes in a messy mosaic of frilled and lobed greenery, and the birds that enliven the landscape with their singing.
Three loop trails wind their way through the woods. Of these, trail number one is best suited to family adventures since it can be completed in under an hour and is paved along its whole length – the other two offer a slightly wilder, rougher experience suitable for more sure-footed souls. Steps meander up past several secluded cabins and into a forest bursting with green life.
Touted as being Taiwan’s last remaining patch of low-elevation old-growth rainforest, the resort park is home to fascinating plants – over 600 species, according to the official website – with identification boards naming some of the more curious specimens. Stand-out stars include characterful fig trees whose sturdy buttress roots inspired the resort’s name, and elsewhere you’ll spot creeping vines tangled with the prop roots of more figs. (For anyone requiring a quick refresher on the difference between buttress and prop roots, both serve to stabilize, but the former grow up from the base of the tree while the latter dangle down from branches.)
The Rainbow Bridge marks the literal high point of trail number one. Slung across a narrow valley, the 32m-long suspension bridge bounces and sways gently underfoot – a clear creek passes beneath it. Rather than being a descriptor, the name is a nod to the land’s early Atayal stewards, for whom a “rainbow bridge” signifies passage from a virtuous earthly life into the afterlife. But despite the vaguely ominous connotations this evokes (is this where the dinosaurs are all lying in wait to eat me?), the bridge is a fun addition to the walk. Once over the far side, the trail turns back and begins to descend towards the heart of the resort.
While the youngsters burn off excess energy on the trails, the rest of the family is free to explore the resort’s other facilities. Among these, the outdoor hot-spring pools are a big draw. Sourced from a geothermal well sunk 1,530m underground, high concentrations of sodium bicarbonate mean the water is odorless with a mildly alkaline pH value of 8.5, which is prized for the softening effect it has on the skin. Pools with varying temperatures let bathers choose just how cooked they wish to feel, and one corner of the tree-shaded facility contains a separate hydrotherapy area full of contraptions with jets and nozzles that shoot water into knotty muscles. The main pools are mixed-sex, so bathing suits (and caps) are required, but hotel guests also have access to sex-segregated pools providing for nude bathing in outdoor but screened facilities that still give you the feeling of being close to nature.
Another feature worthy of at least a short while is the Tea Museum. It may seem a little incongruous to find a museum in a resort setting, but this park just so happens to have been built on the former site of the Dabao Tea Factory, a significant player in the Taiwanese tea scene during the era of Japanese occupation. At one time, the factory – operated by Japan’s Mitsui Norin Co., Ltd. – was the largest producer of black tea in northern Taiwan. Its plantations occupied sweeping sections of the nearby countryside, including the hills of He Xu Xiong Kong Tea Garden visited above, and its leaves were stewed in teapots all around the world, as attested to by the many antique tea boxes on display. The museum is light on written text, but there are some neat artifacts, such as the old Ruston & Hornsby combustion engine and painterly black-and-white photos of tea pickers from a famed local documentary photographer.
When hunger strikes, the resort’s on-site dining options can cater to different palates. Snacks are available at the Scenic Café and Great Roots Bakery, and the two restaurants offer heartier fare. With dishes like clay pot chicken, stir-fried rice, drunken shrimp, braised pork belly, and bamboo salad, Li Yan Chinese Restaurant’s menu showcases highlights from Chinese cuisine’s broad kitchen, while Taizi Western Restaurant’s buffet covers, if not quite the whole gamut of Western cuisine, at least a tantalizing representative selection.
As far as accommodation goes, guests have plenty of options to choose from. Prices start at around NT$6,000 per night for a basic twin room and rise to around NT$23,000 for a detached forest-hugged lodge with space to sleep four. Pretty much every family dynamic is catered for. Larger groups celebrating an important milestone could book out the whole Lizhi Building, which sleeps ten in five rooms (NT$52,800 per night), families with young kids can choose the colorful play suites, and there are even pet-friendly rooms for families with fur babies. Room rates include a buffet breakfast and all hotel guests have access to the forest trails, hot-spring facilities, and museum, but there are also packages including access to the trails and/or hot springs that can be purchased by those who just want to spend a peaceful day lost in Sanxia’s fabulous forest without splashing out on a hotel stay.
The Great Roots Forestry Spa Resort | 大板根森林溫泉酒店
Add: No. 79, Chajiao, Chajiao Borough, Sanxia Dist., New Taipei City
(新北市三峽區插角里插角79號)
Tel: (02) 2674-9228
IG: www.instagram.com/thegreatrootsresort
FB: www.facebook.com/thegreatrootsresort
Website: www.thegreatroots.com
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