Three Counties Field Trip: Taichung To Miaoli To Hsinchu...

I did a lot of driving today. That's me at Emei Lake just before heading off to the HSR station in Hsinchu.

First, I took the early morning HSR train to Taichung again, jumped on the little black motorbike and took the 125 ring road around Taichung city's western circumference out to Fengyuan to rejoin highway 13 going north through Miaoli. Two noteworthy points about the 125: first, it had a lot less traffic than any of the other roads I've driven through the city, which is obviously good; second, it is not actually a single road but is rather a route stitched together across several distinct bits of other roads, and that makes it confusing because at times it is a dual carriageway, and at others it is a daft little single-lane back road running through small industrial estates. Nevertheless I made pretty good time and was lucky enough to find a repair shop just outside Fengyuan that was open (with it being Sunday most of them were closed) so I could get an oil change. If I recall correctly I reached Miaoli city at just after 9am, and headed off straight to Mingde reservoir to retake some earlier shots from my first visit two years ago. I've always liked this view downstream of the spillway...

What was only being built back in July 2012 is now complete: a refurbished water treatment works just downstream from the main dam and spillway...

One shot in particular I had wanted to re-take was this one below. Two years ago I had only my 18mm available but not enough space to back into to properly frame the shot. This year I have the 10mm lens to help cram everything into one shot...

I followed the little road around the southern side of the reservoir and, at its' back end, I caught a small party of people out on a motor-boat; they were heading back downstream into the reservoir from somewhere further up the river...

There was also a new bridge which had been built at some point over the past two years...

Another shot I had not been satisfied with two years ago, was a shot of a rather steep weir I had taken with the 250mm. This weir lies on the river that feeds into Mingde reservoir. This time with the 10mm I was able to get it into context properly...

I left Mingde on the 126 off to highway 3 and headed south-east only to switch to the 124 and wind my way ever so belatedly up east into Nanzhuang district. That was a much longer drive than I expected, and I occasionally ended up getting stuck behind a small convoy of car drivers taking each bend at speeds of no miles an hour. Frustrating. At the eventual inflection point on the 124, I initially headed south thinking that was where I had previously located the weir and sedimentation tank for the trans-basin diversion channel that feeds Yongheshan reservoir. However, the steepness of the surrounding mountainsides quickly persuaded me that I was wrong and so I turned back. On the way I stopped briefly at what seemed to be a popular swimming hole to just dunk my head in the stream to cool off. The locals thought I was hilarious.

I soon found the weir intake and sedimentation tank, with which I was very pleased. I get a good feeling from finally arriving in person at places I'd previously only seen on google earth or streetview. Compare and contrast. The obvious difference is that I had fantastically hot weather today, whereas the shots taken for google were done on days that were a bit drab and grey.

The first interesting thing I noticed about the tank was that, at its' entrance, the water current veered off to the right for some reason I wasn't quite able to fathom, unless there is a slight asymmetry in the layout and spacing of the tank walls...

At the other end of the tank, there is just a single exit prefaced with an iron grille to keep out driftwood and the like, but what was interesting, as always, was the weir design. You can see below that it is actually composed out of four main parts; an initial crest (producing an aerated nappe) followed by a bevelled edge sliding into a flat surface, which is in turn followed by a smooth, non-crested slope down to a raised edge which produces a hydraulic jump just before the exit...

Here is a front view of the weir, with the initial broad crest and bevelled edge clearly visible...

I was also able to get a partial shot of the outside river weir gate, but ideally what I want are shots taken from the other side of the river. Those will have to wait until another time...

Eventually I headed off to Sanwan and from there to Emei Lake, which again is one of those places I've only ever seen on maps and elsewhere online before...

The fat Buddha is extremely large and ostentatious. My aim was just to get a brief look at the lake and get a sense of how to approach it another time...

The dam at the front of the lake (which is, unusually in this case, the south). This was, I believe, the first reservoir in Taiwan to be built by ROC engineers without drawing on U.S. support or previous Japanese designs. I think Baihe reservoir was the second. Note that one of the tainter gates appears to have been crushed and blocked up...

The view looking downstream from the dam. I don't yet know much about Emei Lake and will have to come back for several more visits to get better photographs and possibly ask questions in the management office.

From the bridge (visible in the shot above) looking back toward the dam with the fat buddha in the background...

I was pretty tired when I finally rolled up at the Hsinchu HSR station. I believe I actually fell asleep for five or ten minutes on the train back because I don't remember the train stopping at Chiayi station. When we arrived back in Tainan, there was a building of some sort on fire in Guiren district. Either that or perhaps some unknown hero has slain Sauron, who is also euphemistically referred to as the Secretary General of the National Security Council...