Day 30: September 20th, Duli to Longchang.

The next day I started off along the road. I ended up walking for a couple of hours along the highway, uncertain how to get to the coastline, which was about 1km away. I kept thinking the road would rejoin the coast, but it never did. Hence, there’s a section of about 4km that I missed, and will have to go back and do at some point. Or do I? It’s become a point of internal debate to me how necessary it is to always follow the coast. In one sense, that’s the point of my exercise, the thing that defines the walk. But on the other hand, if there’s a cool aboriginal village along the road, 400 meters inland from the sea, am I by duty compelled to walk the beach instead? In the end, I think that in certain areas, such as coastal Taidong, that it is justifiable for me to stay inland for short stretched to capture the real feeling of the place, and then to return to the true seashore walk. But I will and make up most of these sections before I call the walk over.

Lovely, pastoral Taidong County

On this day, I eventually came to a beautiful red bridge over a river valley. On the other side was a path to the sea. Ahh! I went down to the beach, and followed it around the bend. Shit! Tetra-block molecule land! I mean, the shoreline was composed of the big tetrahedral concrete anti-wave-erosion blocks. They present a highly varied surface profile for walking, as they are designed to interlock and counter-lever each other for stability. It’s a good workout, anyway.

Quiet harbour

That ended a bit later, and I came to some farm roads near the beach. It was about 35C and the sun was really strong. I eventually came to a medium-sized but almost deserted fish port. I guess all the boats were out or something. The water was the most amazing, luminous blue-green. Beyond that, there were a series of really beautiful beaches, clean and open, undulating past small rocky outcrops, the gentle surf sparkling gleefully. I trudged sweatily along through the beauty, until eventually I came to some wooden stairs leading back to the road. As it was almost time for me to think about going home, I went back to the road. A few clicks later, I came to Longchang. I found a bus stop – this time headed for Taidong, not Hualien – and got a few cold ones into me before the bus arrived.

Love that colour

The beginning of a long series of beaches