Day Trip To Houtopi (虎 頭埤), Xinhua District

Today I took my first ever trip to the small lake at Houtopi in Tainan's Xinhua district. Previously, I'd always put this off in favour of visiting the large "proper" reservoirs elsewhere. I went at the invitation of a female friend who wanted somewhere not too far away to take her dog for a change of scenery. I took my first dog too, since she hasn't been out for a drive in a long time due to my commitment to the reservoir project almost every weekend.

I will have to make several return trips, possibly with my other dogs, as the weather was dull and overcast at first, though the sun did come out as the afternoon wore on. Being so close to Tainan city, it is a very much a tourist spot with silly water-spraying serpents for the kids to look at, and peddle boats out on the lake itself...

And a fountain to make people laugh as they get wet in their peddle boats...

The harbor where peddle boats are rented out...

An island inhabited by ducks and geese...

Me and Natalia with our dogs; mine is the black one...

We climbed a small hill to walk around the perimeter and get views over the lake...

A motorboat was out giving kids joyrides around the lake...

Looking across to the feeder stream's entry point under the bridge...

Looking back across the late as the sun began to descend (filter attached)...

Standing on the bridge, looking at the feeder stream...

Walking back around the lake was much easier as the path hugged the shoreline tightly and was thus much quicker. At one point my dog dashed off into the lake itself for a little swim (entirely unprompted by me) before rampaging around the weeds for a while. My friend's dog followed her excitedly, but they eventually got stuck and whilst her dog was able to jump up back onto the raised pavement, I had to jump down and pick mine up to put her back on the pavement. Eventually we made it to the spillway...

By now it was getting late, and on the way back to the car park we paused only briefly so I could deliver a shortened history lesson on Taiwan's camphor trees. On the drive back I wanted to stop for something to eat in Xinhua, but my favourite restaurant there was closed for the New Year so we kept going until we hit Yongkang and got some dumplings there before heading off home.