I heard that the scenery in Taiwan is very amazing, so many wonderful natural heritage. When my friend asked me whether I want to visit it, I didn't think twice, I agreed to join 1 week tour, one of the most gorgeous place called Taroko Gorge in Taroko National Park. The name, Taroko, means "magnificent and beautiful" in the Truku language, it is noted for its spectacular mountains and marble canyons.
It's noon time when we arrived there, many tourist buses going to this destination, the road was open and close on the certain time, as it's only one way. The bus should go around the area while the passengers could walk on foot enjoy the scenery. The guide gave us a nice color, light blue, helmet to protect us from the falling stone from the crag.
The rock now seen in Taroko began over 200 million years ago as sediment on the bottom of the ocean. As the sediment collected, it was subject to increasingly large amounts of pressure which eventually hardened it into limestone. Over the past 100 million years, tectonic compression between the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate supplied additional pressure that metamorphosed the limestone into marble.
After millions of years, the streams of Taroko Gorge still tell the story of its formation. Both geological uplifting and erosion by the Liwu River have formed walls hundreds of meters high, a phenomenon seldom found elsewhere in the world.
This is the most magnificent part of Taroko Gorge, where the sheer cliffs face each other. During the exploration stage, it is the especially difficult and dangerous part to explore. When the wind comes from the broad river valley to the narrow valley it is forced upwards when it hits the cliff face.
The Jiuqudong tunnel was constructed 1996, so that the visitors can view the rock folds, joints and faults of the marble cliffs. The two cliffs are so close to each other, and it looks like they are joining to each other if seen from afar. This section has the reputation of "Nine Turns of the Coiled Dragon". The distance between the cliffs is only around 10-meters wide. In the small gap in the rocks, the narrow Kelan River's rush by, forming a "Fish leaping across the dragon gate" scenery.
My mom and I went down from the bus to explore the rock by walking on the pedestrian street next to the cliff, it's very amazing. The wall rock with beautiful texture and different color was amazing. It's formed an astonishment scenery as God's beautiful creation that human could not defeat. We walked through a short tunnel, that we could peep the river from the small hole in the tunnel. After walking around 15 minutes, we saw our bus which was slowly strolled on the one way street in the queue. It's drizzled, so my mom and I returned to the bus as we had taken some beautiful pictures, and we had enjoy the walk, we're afraid that the bus would leave us behind, and we had to walk a long distance to catch the bus.
We also could see Swallow Grotto, the trail was separated from the highway by a simple concrete divider. The road was narrow, resulting in frequent congestion in the area. The pedestrian path also open to vehicular traffic going West only that must proceed slowly. Take a walk along the 1.4 kilometer-long Swallow Grotto Trail for breathtaking sceneries of potholes on the cliff surfaces, the springs that sprinkled along the lower parts of the walls, narrow cliffs above rush river, as well as the interesting rock formation, “The Chieftain’s Profile Rock” was very fascinating.
If you go there, it's worthy to walk through the pedestrian street. It's safe and not far enough to walk, also the weather was nice. You won't regret it as the scenery is very beautiful to enjoy during the trip.
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