A fortnight ago I read enthusiastically about the newly renovated Old Caoling Bikeway.

Opened on October 30th with a 9am inauguration ride organised by Taiwan’s Ministry of Transport and Communications, the Old Caoling Bikway (舊草嶺自行車道) starts off at Fulong train station and after entering the Old Caoling Tunnel, pulls a u-turn and runs along the beautifully scenic east coast of Gongliao District in Taipei County.

Wanting to get out there myself on the 30th, me the and girlfriend got up early on Sunday morning to head out. Unfortunately for us Taiwan’s weather had other ideas and about 20km into the ride, this happened;

Although the rain doesn’t look nearly as bad as it was in the photo, it was enough for me to call it an early day and begrudgingly, we turned around and headed back.

Waiting anxiously through the week itching to get back out there the next weekend, thankfully last Saturday we were blessed with 30+ degrees of pure sunshine and blue skies.

The perfect weather to undertake an epic 150km bike ride through Taiwan’s Old Caoling Bikeway.



Fulong Station

Fulong Station marks the start of the Old Caoling Bikeway and  as you can see is quite busy.

On the right there you’ve got lunchbox places to eat at and there are numerous bike rental places scattered throughout the immediate vicinity of the station.

If you are riding down to Fulong Station or come by car down Route number 2 along the coast, this is the intersection you want to stop at to turn right;

I probably could have taken a better photo of the intersection, but there were tons of cars and bicycles flying around in every direction and for some strange reason the intersection was market with traffic cones everywhere.

One poor traffic cop attempted to try to control the chaos but to little avail.



Fulong Station to the Old Caoling Tunnel

Turning right if you’re just coming out of Fulong Station (or left from the road 2 intersection above), there is a newly paved road starts off the Old Caoling Bikeway and takes you to the Old Caoling Tunnel.

As you can see, this path can get ridiculously busy. Adding to the chaos of inexperienced riders swerving all over the road is also the nonsensical inclusion of cars on the road;

At times, the inclusion of motor traffic on the bikeway can be downright dangerous:

Most of the time however, it’s pretty peaceful and your ride will look something like this;

Apart from the scenery, attractions on the way to the Caoling Tunnel included this group who stopped to play jumprope

and evidently a church,

y’know… just incase you forgot your morning prayers or something.



The Old Caoling Tunnel

Making your way off the paved road, you then briefly descend down into the Old Caoling Tunnel.

There’s some refreshments available around the entrance to the tunnel (the last available for the next 20km’s or so), so stock up if you need a drink.

The tunnel itself is 2km or so long and takes you right into the heart of the mountain it goes through, and then back out again.

Upon exiting the tunnel, riders are greeted with beautiful views of Turtle Island.

Be warned though, the path itself is chaotic and there are bikes and people sprawled out everywhere.

If you’re so inclined, there’s also a bit of grass for you to run around and perhaps eat a packed lunch on or just enjoy the seaside views;

For more detailed information on the Old Caoling Tunnel (including a video of the ride through), please refer to my previous article on it.



The Old Caoling Tunnel back to Fulong Station

After exiting the tunnel, you previously only had the option of turning back around and heading through it again back to Fulong Station.

With the finishing of the refurbishment of the Old Caoling Bikway, you can now enjoy a gloriously scenic ride back to the station along Taiwan’s east coast.

If anything stunned me like a hammer to the head, it was the deeply contrasting spectacle of Taiwan’s gargantuan east coast mountains meeting the wonderfully rich blue ocean roaring on the right of us.

I’m not too sure what this tower thing was, but it certainly stuck out like a sore thumb against the backdrop of mountains and ocean;

Anyone?

Rumbling along there’s plenty more scenic views to take on,

and at some point you come across this not-quite-finished-yet-but-still-very-perculiar-looking ‘Loveheart Lookout‘.

Dunno whose idea that was but I’ll save the rest of the photos of this love heart saturated monument to mushiness for another day.

As you continue, it’s not long before you reach the outskirts of Fulian Village.

Here the path detours off coastal highway 2 and you run through the fishing village.

The views were still quite nice though.

As we left the village, we ran past this funky looking place;

Apparently it’s some kind of local Fulian Village art studio with a series of whacky statues outside situated right on the shoreline.

Lucky them.

The end of Fulian Village was marked with this u-turn in the bikeway

which then lead to a rather steep incline;

Turning the corner after the incline, we then rolled into what I believe was called Maoao Fishery Village.

This descent had a wonderful view of a nearby mountain

Maoao Fishery Villge itself wasn’t all that large but it did extend off the shoreline a bit. We didn’t have time to poke around but I imagine there’d be some refreshments somewhere there.

Leaving the village you then entered this small path

This small path had some nice views, not as epic as the mountains before but more calming and tranquil;

Situated along the path was this randomly erected rainbow stand

A bit of a distance to travel to and not particularly close to anything, but a few people sat on the coloured steps to take a break.

Further down the path you descend once more onto what I can only assume was the outskirts of Maoao Fishery Village;

This tiny little series of houses takes the Old Caoling Bikeway right up to the shoreline and offers some pretty impressive picturesque moments.

We made use of the backdrop and took some photos of ourselves, and to share with you I set up the Long Haul Trucker and snapped a few;

This woman was kind enough to come out and offer to top up our water if we needed it.

The water was of course warm but we got the sense she was a bit lonely and didn’t mind stopping for a bit of a chat (well, my girlfriend did the talking, I just sat outside and watched the waves).

I’m not too sure if these were locals or tourists to the area,

but despite the big white writing on the road warning that the area was under video surveillance and nobody was allowed to fish there, there they were… fishing away.

As you leave the outskirts of Maoao Fishery Village, you pass through a few more houses

before heading back to Fulong Train Station.

For the most part, the path between the outskirts of Maoao Fishery Village and the train station looks pretty much like this;

Note in that second photo the sign posted distance we’d covered on the track. Once you leave Maoao Fishery Village these posts become much more frequent, and I don’t recall seeing too many, if any at all before we left the village.

This stretch of path was definitely a bit of a wind down scenery wise but still decent enough of a view to take in.

Also of note is that whilst the rest of the Old Caoling Bikeway is not lit, this final 4km or so stretch seemed to be the only part of the bikeway that had provisions for lighting;

Finally nearing the end of our trip, we approached the outskirts of Fulong

passing through the Fulong Beach area (a private beach that I’ve marked to visit at a later date)

There weren’t too many temples in the area but this was probably the largest, what I believe to be DongXin Temple;

And finally, the path back towards the intersection,

and the end of the path where we started from;

All in all, quite an eventful and relaxing ride. Note that there is about another 5km of path that extends northward to Aodi, but due to a lack of light we didn’t make it up there. I felt the round trip was good enough in any case, and unless you had nothing better to do there’s no real reason to take the extra 5kms.

The route we took is highlighted below in red and came to about 20-25kms in total (click for Google Maps).

Access to the bikepath can either be via car or bicycle from Taipei City (50-60kms) or via the TRA train line down to Fulong Train Station.

Having ridden up in the morning we did try to catch a train home with the bicycles (we’d done about 80-90km for the day at this point), but we were told we’d have had to of waited two hours or so for an available ticket on the train.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this was due to not too many spots per train for bicycles and a ton of people wanting to take their bicycles back with them. If you’re going to travel by train to Fulong Station and bring your own bicycle, I’d highly recommend booking in advance.

We instead rode back the way we came, coming in at just under 150km in the saddle for the day.

Definitely recommended riding as a weekend getaway or daytrip up in Taiwan’s northern Gongliao District if you find yourself in the area.



Related posts that might interest you:
  1. The Old Caoling Tunnel, Gongliao District in Taipei
  2. Loveheart Lookout on the Old Caoling Bikeway
  3. The mysterious statues of Fulian Village, Gongliao