First Reservoir Trips Of 2015

I am treating today (Sunday) as a rest day; the joints and muscles in my legs are still aching from Friday's hike up the river and my shoulders and neck are a little sore from yesterday's exertions on the boat. Nonetheless I want to take both of those trips again soon.

I used both the DSLR and the HTC phone camera throughout the course of both days; the phone camera is much more convenient and has some excellent pre-programmed settings, but the picture quality isn't good enough to have any of its shots blown up into prints and it's useless for shooting discrete objects at distance - like birds. My DSLR will take good landscape shots that can be blown up into print, and it has a choice of lenses including wide-angle (10 mm) and telephoto (300 mm), so it's still necessary. This is going to be a long post...

*********************************************************************************

On Friday I drove out to Dapu and the back of Tseng-wen reservoir to follow the Tseng-wen river upstream. Here's the DSLR shot using the kit lens...

And the same shot using the HTC phone camera on one of its' fancy settings...

Myself standing next to the Dapu bridge sign on highway 3 just before it crosses the Tseng-wen river. It was a cold morning and I had come prepared with plenty of kit...

Shortly afterwards I arrived at the cliff looking down upon the Tseng-wen weir...

From that cliff it is also possible to see the mouth of the tributary which feeds into the Tseng-wen and which runs downhill in a north-westerly direction...

The flat, "monochrome" setting on my DSLR...

How the HTC rendered that shot... 

Looking directly eastward from the footbridge across to the Tseng-wen weir with the DSLR in monochrome...

The HTC version...

I had parked the motorbike on the western side of the suspension footbridge (vehicle access is prohibited) and walked across. My plan was to follow the tributary river upstream on foot in an attempt to find the exit point for the trans-basin diversion tunnel which delivers water from Kaohsiung's east-lying Laonung river underground into this tributary which then feeds the extra water into the Tseng-wen reservoir. 

The little farmer's road on the other side of the footbridge is the Chiayi 133 which runs alongside the tributary river and which I followed upstream in a south-easterly direction from about one o'clock onwards. For much of its' length, the 133 is not so much a road as a dirt-track which appears to have seen next to no maintenance in years...

I hadn't gone very far when I caught sight of my first potentially good bird shot - an eagle perched in a tree on the other side of the river. Too far away to be a really good shot though...

An old, traditional farmers' house just off the road, possibly abandoned...

After another mile or two I came across an old, dilapidated concrete weir with a box-bridge some short distance behind it...

Just as I was getting ready to take another shot of the riverbed, an eagle launched himself from a bamboo tree right over my head - he may have been startled by my approach...

This section of the river appears to have been widened recently and a new weir added with long lines of gabions stretching along the northern embankment to prevent further soil erosion...

I surprised yet another bird of prey; at first I took this for a kite, but after watching her bank and turn for a few minutes, I decided she might actually be another eagle...

A few more miles down the track, one of the few signs of road maintenance - a newly constructed bridge (2014) to replace a previous one...

After that bridge I walked another few miles until the track began to bend away from the river and brought me up to a small farm after which it eventually forked with no signs. I guessed the right-hand track would be the most likely to return me to the river eventually, but it was now almost 3 p.m., I was starting to get tired and the afternoon light was beginning to fade. I set down my jacket and bag and took a breather...

There was an old farmer's shack behind me with a blue-truck parked inside the driveway. But otherwise there were no signs of the inhabitants...

After a brief sit-down to have a swig of Paolyta and a bite to eat (jerky I had brought along for any stray dogs I might find), I stood up and started on the way back downstream at about three o'clock...

Vertical rock strata in the side of the cliff overlooking the dirt-track...

It had taken me two hours to reach the farm and the fork in the road before I decided to turn back, so I wanted to beat that time for the return march. I had decided that 4.30 p.m. would be a good result, but it is difficult to guess distances when you are not consciously trying to estimate them along the way. Here is the old broken weir, which I reached a little after 3.30 p.m. which was good time.

Having reached that weir at just after 3.30 p.m. it was obvious that I was making better time on the return hike and that I may possibly have overestimated the distance and time required to get back. As it was I crossed the suspension footbridge and arrived back at my motorbike at almost exactly four o'clock and I guessed the distance I covered to have been maybe seven or eight miles. I want to make this trip again soon, but starting at a much earlier time in the morning to allow me to go further. 

Before crossing over the Dapu bridge, I quickly drove up to the ridge overlooking the river and the two odd concrete structures - they were still there and there had been no change other than the fact there were now a few I-beams sticking out of the water...

*********************************************************************************

The next day, Saturday, I left Tainan quite late (11.30 a.m.) and drove up to the back of Baihe reservoir with my inflatable boat. The idea was to return to the only area of the reservoir I had not yet fully explored - the central channel connecting the western and eastern halves of the reservoir. Instead of entering the escarpment road down the central peninsula, this time I drove the bike up the northern access road and parked at the top of the cliff. I want to take aerial photographs of Baihe reservoir in order to fully illustrate its shape, but the presence of electricity pylons and overhanging cables somewhat complicates the task...

I ambled down to the little north-eastern mud jetty where a few local boats and rafts were tied up, but I had brought my own little inflatable boat. It was about 1.30 p.m. when I got onto the water and pushed off. I had forgotten to bring my waterproof bag for the camera, and so I just stuck the proper camera bag itself into the boat next to my feet...

After a short distance, rounding a corner I took my phone out and started taking pictures (these have been subsequently edited on my laptop - on which they look great, but when I looked at them on the phone after I had edited them they looked "orange").

Eventually, I got my first bird shot: an eagle perched on a branch overhanging the water. I was about fifteen meters away, so it's not an ideal shot, and the task of holding the camera level and steady was made difficult by the motion of the boat as tiny waves lapped against its' bow...

I only managed the one half-decent shot before the bird took off. After paddling around another contour in the reservoir's fractal geometry, the distinctive shape of the mountain wound into view behind the final stretch of the central peninsula...

The shot below was taken with the phone again and shows a set of old bamboo rods sticking out of the water between my boat and the central peninsula in the background...

Eventually, I came within sight of the opening to the central channel which leads from the east down to the northwest curve of the reservoir...

Some short distance into the central channel I spied an Osprey perched on a dead tree off in a cul-de-sac to my right; another opportunity I couldn't afford to miss and I paddled as quickly and quietly as I could to close the distance for a good shot...

Not quite as close as I would have liked but not too bad. I then continued westward down the channel and paused to take the following shots of a Kingfisher perched upon a measuring rod atop a small island...

She looked right at me nodding in sympathy as I talked to her about the idiots I have to put up with back in the city...

... and then performed admirably on cue when I mentioned a certain name...

Heading through the central channel, the way is narrowed by this long spit of land jutting out from the southern edge of the channel - I had to round it to the right (north end)...

Here it is looking back...

... and looking back down the central channel with the edge of the spit just off to the right (note the criss-crossed markings on the mud)...

After the narrow aperture, the channel opens up once again into a small lake with several permanent fishing pontoons floating there. The next exit lay dead ahead to the right through another narrow aperture...

Once through the next aperture, I entered into another lake-within-a-lake as the central channel coursed further northwestward through to the northern curve, which I have only visited once previously with Nikki a couple of years ago...

I sat around and bobbed for a while because it was 3.30pm and I was too hungry and tired to carry on and besides I want to leave something to explore for next time...

I would much rather be here on the water by myself at Baihe reservoir than be on a stupid tourist boat at Sun Moon Lake.