Wednesday, 13 November 2024

I have no idea why I am waking up so early on this trip. I could understand it if I was in a tent, because the sun would wake me up. I am in a hotel room and sometimes in a hotel room with no window (don’t ask) but I am still waking up way too early. This generally means that we are also on the road early. This is not such a bad thing to get out of the heat/humidity of the day. However, it does get us to our destination early and this can sometimes be a problem checking into the hotel.

We stopped at Jiualien viewing area. There were some nice sculptures that had been part of an Art Festival in 2022.

Later we stopped at a Cyclists Rest Stop, it advertised food, toilets and Viewing area. We spotted a couple of touring cyclists and realized that it was the Czech couple we had chatted to near Kaohsuing. They had gone to Kenting and then taken the steep climb to the Shouka Rest stop. She commented that the climb was very hard. The wind, the heat, and the humidity and the hills. Even the downhill was hard because of the wind. She said she could have been on her trainer at home as she must peddle all the time on that no coasting. We must have done the climb on the same day, except we went the “easier” route. They have a week left in Taiwan. We talked for a while about cycle touring. We all headed out at the same time. We passed them, we stopped for lunch and then we passed them again as they were taking another rest. We may see them again.

The weather forecast for today was for more showers and possible thunderstorms in the afternoon. There is also a tropical storm that may hit our area on Friday. The forecast today was wrong. We had sunshine a bit of a headwind, which kept the heat down a little with the sea breezes it was a good day of cycling.

Mountains to the left Ocean to the Right

We spotted more churches today than temples.

Today we were on the road by 8:30, we stopped at a few roadside viewing areas, but we still got to the hotel before 1:00. Check-in was at 3:00 p.m. We asked if we could leave our panniers so that we could go and get some lunch and a coffee. I had spotted a big sign advertising coffee, I thought we could get lunch there.  The next-door neighbour who spoke English came, then someone else showed up eventually with the aid of google translate we were allowed to leave our bags and we could have checked in. We thought it was a bit too early for us to check-in, so we dropped our bags and went for a little bike ride around the town and then up to the coffee shop. It was closed! Back to Family-Mart (similar to 7/11) and I had a bagel with multiple cheeses. It was more of a bun than a bagel, it did have a hole in the middle like a bagel but was definitely more bun tasting than bagel. It was good, however they described it.

Back to the hotel and we checked in. We seem to have a pet in this room. I spotted a gecko zooming along the wall. I think I scared it. We stay at all the best places.

The car drivers were a bit crazy today. We are on Highway 11, it is a two-lane highway with a full lane on either side of the road for cyclists and scooters. There is also about a 1 metre shoulder. At one point Ralf shouted, “car back”. I thought that’s a bit weird as I am in the cycle/scooter lane. He had seen a car in his mirror undertaking other cars in our lane. We moved over to the extra shoulder, but the car had moved back into his lane. Cars were passing other cars on blind bends and there were several occasions where cars were passing in the oncoming lane. We were safe in our cycle/scooter lane with the added 1 metre shoulder. Finally, at our destination we had to go straight on, there were two cars making a right turn. One car went in front of me and the other just kept coming along side trying to make the right turn. I had to brake, and I waved him forward. Cyclists and pedestrians have the right of way, but no-one has told the car drivers that! I didn’t even give him the finger, I just called him a bad name. It is strange when I get cross, I use English swearwords, like wanker.

We settled in to our hotel and Ralf decided to go to the barber in town to get his beard and mustache trimmed. He came back and I am crying. Lost in translation Ralf said. He asked for 1 mm to be taken of, they left less than 1 mm. I hope it grows back before we get on the airplane. As they may not recognize him and his passport photo.

Windmill spotting Ralf is now 4 and I am 3.