Day 1 walk

Day 1: Nov 19 /06: Tanshui to Sanzhih; 3.25 hrsDun-ta-dun-ta-daaa! Charge! My crazy (but not too crazy) quest had begun. A few weeks later than expected, at the crack of 3 PM on a lovely autumn day, on Tanshui Fisherman’s Wharf, I started walking. It was weird but good. Onwards to the horizon and all that! I was very excited, but soon settled down to the simple business of, well, walking! It didn’t take me long to get out of the wharf and beach area. I took the roadway east. It took only 45 minutes to clear town, and on the eastern edge I found a weird grid of large roads, most of then closed off, dicing up a large, flattish area. Obviously, the huge vacant squares will sprout high-rise apartment blocks at some point in the future. Past this, I found an offshoot part of Highway 2, a small, winding country road. It was a pleasant place to walk. After meandering about for an hour, the road led me back to the highway. Traffic was fairly heavy, and the shoulder of the road was a bit narrow. If I had needed to light a safety match off the side of a passing car I probably could have. Facing into the traffic, I plodded along towards San Zhih in the fading light. Soon it was dark, and the traffic became more irritating, with scooters buzzing by a few centimeters from my shoulder, and oncoming headlights dazzling me. At six I called it quits, the first day of my island trek. On the bus back to the MRT, hanging on with grim determination, as the driver veered and bounced along the road, I felt great.

Only later - much later - did I realize that I had missed the coast by kilometers! But not to worry, I made up for it later. See: Related rambles.