North coast

Taiwan continues to impress. The ride out of Taipei to the north coast was as pleasant as a bike ride out of a 25 million metropolis could possibly be. A mixture of perfect bike paths, six lane traffic and industrial areas where riding a bike feels odd in between gazillion trucks.

The coast is impressive, with big mountains meeting a wild sea. We did some good riding, but our effort came to a sudden stop, when arriving in Taiwan’s premier climbing cliff Longdong. Let us be serious, our climbing gear is clogging up a whole pannier.  It is actually really stupid to take climbing gear on a bike tour, whilst trying to travel as light as possible, so it was more or less mandatory for us to stop.

Longdong is a truly peaceful climbing area. Great, solid sea cliff stretching for a couple of kilometres. Ellie and Max monkeyed up some fine climbs, while my back is still not up for earnest climbing. Anyhow, the whole place is great, with a small, friendly and international climbing community.

We have also switched into true holiday mode rapidly and sleep for around 12 hours a day, idling around rockpools for hours and enjoy doing nothing. Max appreciates things thoroughly, enjoys meeting other climbers and is curious about pretty much everything. He is even surprisingly daring when it comes to trying food even when we cannot really identify what it consists off.  Home-schooling started off dismally, but we give it a week….. Max tried to explain to us that bouldering and climbing should count as homework, because it is essentially problem solving. Yeah, good try boy!!!

But what still impresses us all still the most are the relaxed and friendly locals. They make you feel really welcome here.