The beauty of Hualien and TaiTong coast, Taiwan

Yesterday we had a great time in Taroko National Park After a good night sleep and a quick breakfast with our friends, we were off to TaiTong (pronounced Tai Dong). Also on the east coast of Taiwan but further south (past the Tropic of Cancer). It was a long drive, but not because of the actual distance. Taiwan is the most mountainous part of Asia. This makes traveling sometimes very slow as roads are small, winding, and drastically changing in elevation.

We also didn't drive straight to the hotel. Instead, we stopped at a few places on the way and enjoyed our time together.

The first stop was still in Hualien county. It was called Cow Mountian. I'm not sure why. We couldn't find anything that resembled a cow. The drive down from the highway was very dangerous with hairpin curves and literally one small lane. But we didn't know ahead of time and there was no way to turn around. Luckily, no one was using the road as we were. It was about one mile from the freeway.

When we got there, it was almost empty. No one for a long way. For good reason. If we knew about the drive down, we probably wouldn't have gone. But it was worth it. Beautiful beach, mountains, and the blue sea.

One thing that I love about the east coast are the rocks. There are rocks of every color, size, and shape. The designs are amazing. And you can find most rocks with white lines going through them. I would love to know why. If anyone know, please comment.

The next place was Shi Men Dong or "Stone Door Cave". At first, we started walking down and couldn't figure out why it was called that. It was beautiful. It seemed at first like a stony coast. But as we walked down, it became amazing. The stones look as if they were placed on cement. So all the stones are "cemented" in place, no loose rocks. But this was too vast to be manmade. So it must be the result of volcanic flows. Walking on the rocks were uncomfortable after a while, but at least we didn't worry about losing our balance on loose rocks.

Then we found the "stone door". It was two sides of a cliff that opened in the middle. A little dangerous if the tide came in, but it wasn't at that time. If you walked through the "doors" a massive landscape full of tide pools appeared.

Then we also found the cave. It wasn't much of a cave since it had 4 openings. Three of the openings were places you could walk through and one was in the roof. I wonder if the earthquakes put the skylight in. It was very cool inside and a fun place to explore.

We went to one more attraction on the way to our hotel. However, we couldn't find it. I'm guessing the GPS wasn't working because we ended up in the middle of a farming community. There was no one to ask, so we just continued to our destination, TaiTong city.

We got to the hotel late and now we are planning our day for tomorrow.
*All pictures taken by me with Iphone 14