From my little neighbourhood in Tainan to Wan-Da reservoir (萬大水庫) in Nantou is almost ninety miles in a straight line. Sixty five miles of that distance - more than two thirds - passes through the central mountain range. Of course, the actual journey will be anything but a straight line. I will measure it with the mileage clock on my bike, but from looking at the map I reckon it to be somewhere between a hundred and a hundred fifty miles, with most of this distance covering switchbacks in the mountains. There's no chance I can go there and return the same day, so I'll have to take my tent and the little gas stove. What I haven't decided yet is when to go, but it'll have to be done soon while I still have the benefit of the summer weather.
From Wan-Da reservoir, I will have to make a second trip further north to see if I can get to Deiji reservoir (德基水庫) high up in the mountains of Taichung. Apparently, Route 8 heading east out of Taichung city is closed due to landslides in the area. Whether I can get up around the back of Deiji reservoir remains to be seen. It is singularly spectacular.
Of all the trips I will have to make to see Taiwan's reservoirs, this is the one trip that I am most wary of due largely to the remoteness of the two locations and the comparatively excessive time costs - all the other trips up north can be made as same-day returns using the trains and renting scooters, but this is going to be the one that actually demands an attitude, and much more so than the time I drove all the way back to Kaohsiung city from Hualien city in one fell, ten hour drive down the east coast and back up the west coast. To do this with the requisite time-discipline is going to be a real test.
Update:
Some of this is what I have to look forward to on Route 14甲 heading north through Nantou, but without the snow. It will be magnificent.
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