Day 442: Jhihben Forest Recreation Area (知本国家森林游乐区)

Jun 18 - Walk early down to the train station and get a train for one stop south at Zhiben. The Zhiben station is tiny, with a lonely bus stop outside where we sit and wait for an onward bus. I go in search of food (we did not have time to find any in Taitung), but suddenly a bus comes careening around a corner so I race it back the stop. It turns out to be the right bus line, but heading in the opposite direction. The correct bus does show up a bit later, but still about 10 minutes early.

The bus goes up a steep-sided valley with the occasional hotel and hot springs. They are digging down the riverbed, either to keep the channel at a certain elevation, or to extract aggregate. As with much of the highlands of Taiwan, the erosion here is significant. I would guess that if they didn’t dig out the riverbed, soon it would begin to flood the level of roads and buildings around it.

Jhihben Forest is just past the last bus stop. We walk it in, down across a bridge and up the other side.

It is really hot today, and the hills are steep. The park is well organized and pleasant to walk around in. There is a large visitor center with profuse detail (in Chinese and English) about the ecosystem of this region (affected greatly by the monsoon cycle).

Take bus back to Zhiben train station. Unfortunately, the next train is only in two hours. For some reason, we cannot easily get Google Maps information in Taitung, so it hasn’t been possible to carefully assess the routings and times of buses and trains. We sit around for an hour and get the next bus instead. There are a million tiny biting flies here that make relaxing impossible. Get bus back to Taitung downtown, eat dinner, and get another bus back to our district of Taitung with the train station. Janet and Odette get me a cake for Father’s Day.