Cycling down the Taroko Gorge
Summary
Taroko Gorge on the east coast of Taiwan is stunning. Steep, bright and beautifully cut marble walls, lush vegetation, mountains, and cascading waterfalls all the way down. Cycling this is one of the highlight experiences for any trip to Taiwan
One big tip – stay at the Taroko Lodge who can drop you off at the top of the gorge for a nicer cycle downhill. Whilst not super hard, the cycle up from the Visitor Centre, at the entrance to the valley, to just past the Tianxiang area, where most people finish, is around 20km / 1.5miles and with a net uphill of around 500m / 1650ft. For sure its a nice challenge for the 1.5 hours or so, but it can be a little bit of a slog uphill. If you stay at Taroko Lodge, which is a nice old-school homestay, they can arrange to rent you bikes and drop you off anywhere on the gorge, which takes the slog out of the whole experience. I took a very leisurely 2.5 hours to cycle from the bridge by Tianxiang back down to the Lodge. Bloody loved it
highlights
#1 Having a super chilled out downhill cycle as you watch the stunning scenery go by
#2 Exploring some of the hidden gorges and bridges a bit further up from the typical tourist starting point of Tianxiang, and having them largely to yourself
#3 Cycling through the marble (yes, marble) sided tunnels of the gorge
#4 Walking on some of the pedestrian bridges to the various Buddhist sites scattered throughout the gorge
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other Cycling Experiences
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone