Then Chiayi...
Then Changhua (Yunlin county to the south of Changhua doesn't have anything you would call a city)...
Finally crossing the river into Taichung after about 45 minutes...
Then began the drama of Taichung: I strolled into XinWuri station to get a cheap ticket to Fengyuan just to the north of Taichung city proper. I had expected to get the train at 8.15am but either there wasn't one or I just missed it. Instead I had to get the 8.26am train, which entailed a fifteen minute wait, but it turned out that train stopped at Taichung central at which point I had to change platforms and wait another fifteen minutes for the next train to Fengyuan. When I finally got to Fengyuan, it was already after 9.00am and I hurried to the motorcycle repair shop to pick up the little black motorbike I had sent earlier this week. Thankfully there was no problem when I got there and I was delighted to see it again. I bought a new helmet whilst I was there and decided that, in order to avoid the train fiasco next time, I would just drive back to Taichung city and find somewhere to park there rather than park in Fengyuan.
I took highway 3 out of Fengyuan through Dongshih upward to Liyutan reservoir. When planning I had thought about taking the 13, but I figured the 3 would be more scenic. It wasn't and it was absolutely packed with weekenders like me. Road signs throughout Taiwan are usually sketchy at best, but this is especially true in Taichung, and at one point I had to actually stop and consult google maps on my slow phone, which was too slow to load up the page so I asked a chap whose business was next to a gas station and his directions proved to be solid. When I eventually got there I was lucky enough to see the spillway in use...
I had long anticipated actually getting here and seeing the spillway because it is the only one in Taiwan that uses a trapezoidal, "piano-keys" overflow-weir. The significance of the design is its' efficiency; even though the horizontal distance between the two mountain spurs is quite narrow, the use of several connecting trapezoids increases the surface area of the weir's crest, thus allowing a higher spillover rate...
I was very pleased with the shots my new 10-24mm wide-angle lens was letting me take...
For comparison, here's the same shot taken with 18-55mm lens...
I haven't looked at the measurements yet, but my guess is that the trapezoidal arrangement allows the overflow weir something like 7 to 8 times the surface area of a standard ogee-crest...
Notice the driftwood clogging up the overflow weir; how come the management hadn't bothered to protect the spillway with a debris line? After all there was one much further back east...
Liyutan reservoir is built upon natural cavities between mountain spurs and so its' dam is separated from the spillway by some distance...
Along the road between the spillway and the dam, there was a bulldozer on display which had wheels equipped with studs rather than tyres or tracks. The reservoir was completed in 1992, so the design of this particular bulldozer is only 20 odd years old...
There were no information panels about it, so I wonder whether its' unusual wheel design may have been ad-hoc to cope with a particular difficulty at the construction site of this reservoir.
On my way back across the spillway bridge, I observed one of the locals taking pictures of the overflow weir using the Taiwanese "black card method" (setting the shutter speed to manual, and limiting the camera's exposure to light by moving a black card with a slit in the middle in front of it). I'm still not sure I understand what he was trying to do - something about "stilling" the falling water. There is a very easy effect with falling water (blurring) which can be achieved simply through the use of a very narrow aperture, so I don't think he meant that. I borrowed his tripod and black card to try it using my camera. I don't think I got it right...
Upon leaving I bought some sausages from one of the many vendors to give to three stray white dogs that were wandering around on the road. I didn't take any pictures because I stopped to have a drink myself before motoring around to the other side of the reservoir. One of the problems I had was that my new helmet was a bit tight, which at first made it comfortable but after several hours it began to place a strain on my neck so I would stop to take it off now and then...
I got around to the back end of the reservoir where highway 3 runs over a bridge just before 1pm. I had planned to spend another hour at the reservoir before heading back to Taichung, but the thickening cloud cover and the sun just peaking past its midday zenith persuaded me to leave early. In addition, there wasn't much more to see from the road itself that wouldn't take an inordinate amount of time and I was getting tired...
On the drive back to Taichung city, I took the 13 rather than the 3 and it may have saved me a little time, but getting back through Fengyuan was a minor horror, and Taichung city itself was just a seething nightmare of roadworks, drunk bus drivers, constant red-light interruptions of more than 70 seconds, stifling heat and humidity and the rising pain in my neck caused by the new helmet. Early on I had briefly toyed with the idea of calling a friend for something to eat, but as my physical exhaustion began to dawn on me, and the more I thought about Black & White, I realized there was really no other choice but to take the high speed train back to Tainan an hour early.
For next time, I've swapped the irritation of the train fiasco for the absolute nightmare of driving through Taichung city. I suspect that may have been a mistake, but I guess I'll confirm it next time I go.
Hey, Mike, about those unusual wheels on the dozer. Here in the States, well at least in Michigan, you see those type of wheels on dozers at garbage landfills. I think their purpose is not only traction related, but also to break down and compact garbage coming into the landfills. I wonder why the reservoir builders chose that style of wheel during construction of the reservoir?
ReplyDeleteAll is well with me and mine, though I am still off the air at the moment. Hope all is well with you.
Hello John, thanks - and yes I noticed you were off air. About the wheels; yes I think that must be right. It may have been used to compact the mixed earth used as shell-filler in the downstream side of the dam. I went to the Caterpillar website, but found that their machines use chevrons on the wheels rather than conical studs, so I don't know whether the bulldozer at Liyutan is just an old, now-obsolete design, or whether the conical studs were specifically chosen (and if so, why...?).
ReplyDeleteI've now visited 16 of Taiwan's 26 reservoirs, but this is the first time I've ever seen construction equipment put on public display. Somebody obviously thought the bulldozer worthy of public interest, and yet exhibiting such things is clearly not a general policy. Nor is providing on-site information panels about the reservoirs, their designs and the construction methods used. Some of this information is given at one or two reservoirs, but absent at most others even when there was some unusual method or design involved (e.g. one of the first uses of roller-compacted concrete at Shihmen reservoir in the 1950s).