Previous post —> Taiwan Cycling Day 8-14
We are at the tail end of our Taiwan cycling trip, finishing the remainder of the east coast and enjoying the beautiful scenery. However with some typhoon warnings comes a lot of rain on the forecast, so it’s uncertain how much more cycling we will get done or if we will be catching the train for most of the remaining journey…
Day 15: Sunday 6 July 2025. Hualien.
Hualien / Rest Day. We’re quite relieved that we don’t need to do any cycling today as it’s raining outside and we’re still feeling unwell ☔️ After a much needed sleep in we wander out in the rain in search of a good coffee shop, namely @coffeeflash.hualien By the evening the rain has stopped and we’re feeling marginally better so we head to the night markets which are massive and open every night 🌙 Unfortunately a lot of the stalls are closed due to the rain earlier so after a quick wander we decide to head to a nearby restaurant for dinner. The food during our travels in Taiwan has been pretty amazing but our dinner tonight at a small restaurant called Lazy House @lazy_house1010 is probably one of the best we’ve had 🍜 The laksa and green curry we order are so good! Afterwards we wander around the area and come across a street parade full of lights and music before hitting up the arcades to win a few things from the claw machines 👾
Day 16: Monday 7 July 2025. Hualien to Luodong.
Hualien to Xincheng / 25km then train to Luodong. It’s still raining this morning but it eases as soon as we start riding ☔️ Our destination today is Luodong but the route there has many tunnels that aren’t bike friendly. The suggested itinerary from several different sources is to cycle to Xincheng then catch the train towards Su’ao. We decide to go a little further to Luodong as it’s a bigger town with more food and hotel options 🏨 Our route today consists of highways and side roads through the local villages which is really enjoyable to cycle through and has amazing views of the mountains. We pass by many stray dogs along the roads but they are all the chilled friendly type 🐕 We arrive at Xincheng station but the next train isn’t for two hours (1:44pm) so we cycle to a nearby Family Mart for some lunch. We reckon Taiwanese Family Marts are on par with, if not better than, the ones in Japan. Once again the train is full of people sporting their bicycles, showing how cycle friendly this country is 🚆 We arrive in Luodong just after 3pm and check into our hotel before popping out to wander the town. Luodong Night Market is just down the road and it’s one of the best night markets we’ve been to so far – it’s absolutely buzzing, and it’s only Monday night! 🍢 We grab some soup dumplings, Jianbing and long potatoes, which are all super yum. This may be the last night market we’ll see before we make it back to Taipei on Friday; it’s all smaller towns in our final few days of cycling 🚴🏻
Day 17: Tuesday 8 July 2025. Luodong to Fulong.
Luodong to Fulong / 51km. A very comfortable day on the bike with just one hill and zero headwind ⛰️ We start along the cycle way heading out of Luodong but keep getting slowed down by these annoying blockades used to prevent scooters from using the path 🏍️ We eventually head onto the highway but the traffic is a bit sketchy; as there is no expressway around this particular area, there are big trucks and taxis being a bit reckless on the local roads. The mountains are to our left and ocean to our right and we see a lot of surfers catching some waves 🌊 The most enjoyable part of our ride today is heading through the Old Caoling Tunnel, a 2.3km stretch exclusive to bicycles only. It’s a very cool, dark tunnel, illuminated with fluro lights with music playing 🎵 It’s a weekday so there aren’t too many other cyclists but you can imagine how busy it would become on a weekend with the area being quite touristy. We arrive in the town of Fulong, which is small but full of foreigners doing day trips from Taipei. Our accommodation is a basic family run inn and it appears we might be the only guests for the night 🌙 As the town is small, dinner is at a small bento box place plus a few things from the local convenience store. As we are about 70km from our end point we only have two days of cycling left!
Day 18: Wednesday 9 July 2025. Fulong to Keelung.
Fulong to Keelung / 35km. A rainy day today! ☔️ We’ve been pretty lucky in terms of the rain holding out when it has been forecast but today it didn’t hold back and rained right through the day and into the night. One positive is that it’s quite cool compared to the hot days we had at the start ☀️ We take the main highway to get out of Fulong but the traffic is quite chaotic so luckily Google maps guides us onto some back roads. We pass through two fairly long tunnels (about 3km each!), one uphill and one downhill, before arriving in Keelung 🏙️ We drop into a busy buffet place for lunch then take a wander to Keelung Port and Marine Plaza and notice the city still has a lot of old style buildings still in use 🏚️ Our hotel is not far from the night market but it continues to rain throughout the night so we decide to skip it and stay local for dinner. We are only about 40km from Taipei so we intend to finish our cycling tomorrow, a day earlier than planned 🚲
Day 19: Thursday 10 July 2025. Keelung to Shilin.
Keelung to Shilin / 40.4km. Our last cycling day! It’s forecast to rain all day but it’s just an annoying drizzle 🌧️ The good news is that we follow the Riverside Bikeway the entire way and it’s an absolute pleasure to ride. The weather is cool and apart from a brief ascent at the start it’s completely flat 🚲 The entire Taipei Riverside Bikeway extends 112km along four different rivers, and we follow the section along Keelung River. As we approach Taipei we see a lot of old style apartments along the river and it’s nice to see they have been retained instead of being replaced by skyscraper condos that you see everywhere else 🏙️ We arrive in Shilin around lunchtime but check in isn’t until 4pm so we head to a nice cafe for lunch and coffee. At 3pm we make our way to drop the bikes back to Mathewbike and check into our hotel for the night. Out of the 940km of bike path around the country we managed to cycle 850km of it, catching the train three times 🚆 If we did this again we would 1. Avoid doing it in the Summer, 2. Skip the west coast, 3. Cycle the east coast in a clockwise direction but only to Kaohsiung, then backtrack to Taipei, 4. Wear leggings to avoid the dreaded cycle tan (this one’s from Belinda) ☀️ We now have a week of downtime in Taipei for some rest and plan to explore some of the hiking trails around the area. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed these past 3 weeks and plan to return to Taiwan next year.
Back in Taipei. We have finished our cycling adventures and have a few days to wind down before we leave Taiwan 🇹🇼 With our accommodation close to the mountains we’ve decided to do a bit of hiking over the next few days. Today we did the Elephant Mountain Trail, one of the more popular ones with both locals and foreigners 🐘 The entire trail is stairs and there are a few peaks along the way, all with great views of the city and the 101 Tower. Most people turn around at the Xiangshan Peak (184m) but we continue onto the Jiuwu Peak (九五峰) at 375m ⛰️ Being a weekend, the trail is quite busy but the crowd thins out the higher up we go. It’s about 33°c today but the humidity is super high, nearly 100%, and I don’t think we have sweated as much on this trip as we have today 🥵 After reaching the peak we enjoy the view before making our descent. There are many markets in Taipei so we visit Linjiang Night Market which is fairly close by. We’ve really enjoyed our time in Taiwan and look forward to returning. See you on our next adventure! ✌🏻
eat bike fly 