On Well-Maintained Bikeways and Heritage Rail Tracks
EXT | RICK CHARETTE
PHOTOS | VISION
Sprawling New Taipei City, which encircles Taipei City, is a place of densely urbanized areas and slower-paced outlying locales. Here we take you on three first-rate biking jaunts through its countryside – along its breeze-cooled coast, along its most important river, and even through a mountain. Note that we use “biking” here rather than “cycling”; on two of our excursions, your mount will have two wheels, but on the other, your steed will be a four-wheeled rail bike, rolling along on a length of tracks that is a priceless vestige of Taiwan’s industrial past. Intrigued? All aboard, off we go!
Old Caoling Circle Line Bikeway
This long, moderate-grade 20km bikeway, among Taiwan’s finest, provides you with the golden opportunity to circumnavigate Taiwan’s easternmost peninsula, which is capped with the iconic Sandiaojiao (Cape Santiago) Lighthouse at its tip, a place of stunning views and location of mainland Taiwan’s “first sunrise” each day. Getting there is a breeze. Trains run regularly from Taipei to the coastal town of Fulong, taking about 1.5hrs.
In warm weather awash with beach-fun tourists, Fulong village is on the north side of the peninsula. Rent your bike (e-bikes available) from one of the gaggle of government-vetted bike-rental shops around Fulong Railway Station, then head toward this ride’s highlight, the Old Caoling Tunnel, along a short and shallow fecund valley dotted with small farms.
The mountain-piercing tunnel is a 2.16km railway section, Taiwan’s longest tunnel when completed in 1924. It was retired in 1986 after a wider double-track tunnel had been built parallel to it. When you pop out the southern end of the old tunnel, you’re right on the coast, on the peninsula’s south side, and you can watch trains whooshing in and out of the new tunnel right beside.
There are small operators here where you can get a bite to eat and an ice cream or popsicle. And then you can decide to either return through the tunnel or embark on the long ride around the peninsula, breakers below to the right, mountainside crowding in on the left, coastal highway (Prov. Hwy 2) right beside much of the way.
Along the coast, you’ll pass the Lailai Coast Geological Area, the northeast coast’s most magnificent sea-eroded stone platform. At the eastern tip, visit the Sandiaojiao Lighthouse, built by the Japanese in 1931. And back at Fulong, rest up at the 3km-long golden-sand Fulong Beach, north Taiwan’s most popular. Fulong has coast-side resort-hotel accommodations and a large campground with rentals.
Shen’ao Rail Bike
Chugga-chugga choo-choo, time to ride the railroad now! The Shen’ao Rail Bike attraction (www.railbike.com.tw), a runaway success that opened in 2018, is located right on the coast parallel to the coastal highway just southeast of Keelung City’s Badouzi Fishing Port.
Take a train from Taipei to Keelung Railway Station and change to bus no. 791. The bus plies the coastal highway and stops at both the northwest terminus (Badouzi Station) and southwest terminus (Shen’ao Station) of the 1.3km-long section of retired railway track on which the rail bikes run. (Note: The 791 heads much further along the coast, its run ending in the above-mentioned Fulong village.)
Your jaunt is self-pedal, and your rolling stock is a brightly painted four-wheeled buggy-style rail bike that fits two adults. The first leg (traveling from Badouzi Station) gives you a full view of the coastline, with big views of young Chaojing Park, the rocky shore of Wanghaixiang Bay, and fishing craft heading into and out of the small Wanghaixiang Fishing Harbor. About halfway along, you enter a tunnel that cuts through a mountain spur – a fantasia-like experience awaits inside, with artistic lighting deftly used to bring you the sensation of traveling beneath the nearby ocean surface, marine creatures drifting by beside and above you. On exit, you encounter a leafy forest landscape inside a long, narrow valley, passing by the imposing and dramatically incongruous concrete ruins of a defunct coal-mining operation before arriving at the Shen’ao Station terminus.
Before/after a ride, refresh yourself at the eye-captivating HOHObase, a café/restaurant (sandwiches/salads/desserts) constructed of interconnected pastel-color cargo containers between tracks and highway about 200m from Badouzi Station.
The tracks here once belonged to the Shen’ao Branch Line, which ran from Keelung along the coast to a coast-side loading station below the mountainside mining town of Jinguashi, today home of the marvelous Gold Museum (gep-en.ntpc.gov.tw). Built to haul coal, it also handled local passengers and freight.
Golden Shore Cycling Path
You’ve enjoyed scenery on two outings along the rugged Northeast Coast – time now to conquer the also-majestically-scenic, volcano-backdropped North Coast! This even-grade 16.7km ride starts at the Taipei/New Taipei City border by the lazy Tamsui River’s right bank, takes you up to the river’s debouche at the ocean, and then runs a distance along the North Coast, the mighty Yangmingshan massif, made up of long-dormant volcanoes, in full glorious view the entire length.
You start at small Guanhai Park, a short ride from the MRT Guandu Station. There are YouBike public-bike rentals at the station. Other bike rentals are available along the riverside path just south of here, near Guandu Temple. Your excursion ends – if one way only – not far beyond Danhai New Town, with the town’s light-rail Danhai LRT Kanding Station a return option. Note that bike rentals are also available about halfway along the route at MRT Tamsui Station.
Among your excursion highlights, in order encountered, is the picturesque Guandu Bridge across the Tamsui, a red-painted icon; the Tamsui River Mangrove Nature Reserve, busy with mudskippers and fiddler crabs; Tamsui Old Street, thick with sellers of traditional snack treats and other souvenir-worthy merchandise; a thicket of inexpensive and higher-end eateries and snack joints path-side along the river north of the metro station, with alfresco seating optimal for Tamsui’s famed sunsets; Fort San Domingo and the Former British Consulate (5min. uphill walk from path), important heritage assets from the Spanish/Dutch/British imperial presence in Taiwan 17th-19th centuries; Tamsui Customs Wharf, Taiwan’s sole extant pier of Qing Dynasty pedigree; and Tamsui Fisherman’s Wharf at the river’s mouth, which features seafood and other eateries, the gleaming-white, cable-stayed pedestrian Lover’s Bridge, which leaps the major fishing harbor here, opportunities for short yacht cruises around the river mouth and into open water (fee), and glorious sunset views from a long boardwalk viewing platform.
About the author
Rick Charette
A Canadian, Rick has been resident in Taiwan almost continually since 1988. His book, article, and other writings, on Asian and North American destinations and subjects—encompassing travel, culture, history, business/economics—have been published widely overseas and in Taiwan. He has worked with National Geographic, Michelin, APA Insight Guides, and other Western groups internationally, and with many local publishers and central/city/county government bodies in Taiwan. Rick also handles a wide range of editorial and translation (from Mandarin Chinese) projects.
