The plan is to have it transported up north and leave it parked there permanently to help me with my reservoir trips. Naturally, it'll have to be shifted about from one county to another as needed, but it should work out cheaper than constantly renting scooters for NT$700 per day. Obviously, it'll be a lot faster and more convenient than riding the bicycle too, meaning I can accomplish much more for an equal outlay of time.
At just after 6am this morning, I took it out on a little test-drive up to the 174 snaking around the back of Wushantou reservoir and up to "Little Switzerland" so as I could borrow a raft. I got there and straight onto the water at just after 7.30am...
This is one of Wushantou's two small hydroelectric power stations, the other one being located on the forward premises of the reservoir to the west of the dam.
Of the two rafts that were tied up at the little harbour, there was a large one and a small one. The large one had a stack of gear left on it, so I took the small one - only five pipes across and so very narrow and unstable, but nonetheless easy to manage once I had loaded all my gear on and sat down on the bucket-seat. I remembered that the local chap I spoke to last Sunday had described the distance as "very far" with the specifier of "30 mins", which is not far at all to me given that I am used to spending hours upon hours on these rafts.
However, I quickly ran into a problem: after I rounded the first two corners of the river I discovered that the river bed was extremely shallow, so much so that I decided to try getting out and walking - which was a mistake...
This is one of Wushantou's two small hydroelectric power stations, the other one being located on the forward premises of the reservoir to the west of the dam.
Of the two rafts that were tied up at the little harbour, there was a large one and a small one. The large one had a stack of gear left on it, so I took the small one - only five pipes across and so very narrow and unstable, but nonetheless easy to manage once I had loaded all my gear on and sat down on the bucket-seat. I remembered that the local chap I spoke to last Sunday had described the distance as "very far" with the specifier of "30 mins", which is not far at all to me given that I am used to spending hours upon hours on these rafts.
However, I quickly ran into a problem: after I rounded the first two corners of the river I discovered that the river bed was extremely shallow, so much so that I decided to try getting out and walking - which was a mistake...
As soon as I committed both feet to the river bed, I sank almost up to my waste in perhaps as much as eighty four years of loosely accumulated sediment. That plan scrapped, I soon realized that what I had to do was try to keep to the edges of the river where the depth was about six inches or so. In the middle of the river, where there was barely an inch of water there were several fishermen's nets stretched out between bamboo poles. By passing along the edge of the river I was able to circumnavigate this area and pass out around another bend into a deeper stretch of the river further upstream.
As I moved further upstream, the mountain ridge came into view that separates Nanxi district in the east of Tainan county from Lioujia and Danei districts in the centre of Tainan county. On the other side of those mountains lies the valley through which the Tseng-wen river flows. The chief engineer of Wushantou reservoir, Yoichi Hatta, had constructed an underground tunnel beneath those mountains through which water could be diverted from the Tseng-wen river into this, the Guantian river and thence feed into Wushantou reservoir. I had already seen and photographed the weir, where the diversion begins on the other side of those mountains and now I was intent on finding the tunnel itself...
On seeing the electricity poles peering out from the foliage alongside the ridge-road, I had little wonder why I had lost track of the river when I went looking for the tunnel by bike last time: there are just too many trees to see down.
Looking back downstream the way I had came...
The thirty minutes estimate I had been given was turning out to be badly wrong, as it was already five past eight in the morning and the mountains still seemed some way distant as I approached yet another bend...
... and then there it was: this was my first glimpse of the tunnel taken at some distance using the 250mm...
In appearance the tunnel mouth structure almost resembles masonry rather than concrete...
It was abutted by large spurs on either side...
If I recall correctly from my earlier research, the length of the tunnel itself is just over a full kilometer with the trans-basin diversion channel, of which it forms one part, approximately three kilometers in length. However, I need to fact check this when I get a moment...
A two-character inscription heads the tunnel mouth; the first character may, I believe, be "kou" meaning "mouth" but I'm unsure about the second character as it appears to be somewhat weather worn. I'll have to ask... (Later: it is the character "xi" [西], meaning "west" - the inscription is to be read from right to left as "west mouth").
Looking into the tunnel itself, the light penetrated only thirty yards or so and the rim lines appear to reveal that the tunnel was constructed in modular pieces. I would think that these lines would have been visible upon the tunnel's completion in 1930 and have only been accentuated by weathering since then. The other noteworthy thing about the tunnel mouth was the terrible sounds it emitted. The first one actually shocked me, it was so violent and unexpected. However, when I peered into the tunnel I saw no sign of movement whatsoever.
As I pulled the raft up to the northern spur to tie it up against a dead tree, I concluded that the (by now several times repeated) sound was the massively amplified echo of leaping fish within the tunnel.
On the northern spur there was a little staircase leading up over the tunnel's mantle...
Since the overgrowth was significant, I doubted that it would lead anywhere other than the crest of the mantle itself. Perhaps the intention was to allow local fishermen to sit on the edge and dangle their lines into the water near the tunnel's mouth to catch fish...
Looking across from the northern spur toward the southern spur; whilst the southern spur was covered in overgrowth, the northern spur had been largely cleared of all that and was employed by the locals for purposes related to waiting around; there were ashes and other small signs of cooking, so presumably one person would be waiting on the northern spur whilst another went out on a raft to check the fishing nets.
At 8.30am the eagles finally started turning up to keep an eye on me...
On the way back up the river, I made much swifter progress than I had on the way down. Partly this is because I was making fewer camera stops, partly because I was able to negotiate my way through the shallows better this time and partly because, with the early morning period fast disappearing, I had a growing sense of urgency to get back. I had a full work schedule for the afternoon through until the late evening. I did stop to take a few pictures on the way back however, birds first and foremost. This was one of the first shots of what I am convinced is a falcon of some sort, but it is far too distant to permit identification...
Whilst fiddling about with the camera, an Osprey took off about fifty, sixty yards behind me and I missed it. By the time I saw her again she was already up in the air too far away to get a half-decent shot of her...
After I made my way back through the shallows and around the last bends back to "Little Switzerland", I took a few shots looking downstream in the direction of the dam, intake tower and sinkhole...
I also determined to check out the baffling block structure I had noticed last time...
It was surprisingly surmounted by a little home-made brick wall, though the slope itself, buttressing and concrete baffling blocks must have been built by the Water Bureau...
It protected not another stream per se, but a vegetable patch among a reed-strewn stream bed...
Standing on the baffling block-slope looking back toward the dam and the intake tower...
On my final route back to the little harbour I briefly stopped to get some close-up shots of the sinkhole and the intake tower...
Of course, I didn't want to get too close to the sinkhole though I think the raft would merely have bumped up against its' edge. The water intake tower must be a few years old itself now, perhaps in the '70s contemporaneously with the construction of Tseng-wen reservoir...
On the way here, I had made a brief detour into Lioujia village itself to buy some dog food for the dog I remembered from last Sunday and from two years previously. However, though he was pleased to see me he only wanted to give me his paw and have me talk to him and pick ticks out of his fur; in the can of Pedigree Chum I set down for him, he had no interest whatsoever!
It's not quite good enough to confirm an ID, but I suspect this is some species of Kestrel just because of the apparently light-brownish plumage. But who knows - I need a better telephoto lens.
As I moved further upstream, the mountain ridge came into view that separates Nanxi district in the east of Tainan county from Lioujia and Danei districts in the centre of Tainan county. On the other side of those mountains lies the valley through which the Tseng-wen river flows. The chief engineer of Wushantou reservoir, Yoichi Hatta, had constructed an underground tunnel beneath those mountains through which water could be diverted from the Tseng-wen river into this, the Guantian river and thence feed into Wushantou reservoir. I had already seen and photographed the weir, where the diversion begins on the other side of those mountains and now I was intent on finding the tunnel itself...
On seeing the electricity poles peering out from the foliage alongside the ridge-road, I had little wonder why I had lost track of the river when I went looking for the tunnel by bike last time: there are just too many trees to see down.
Looking back downstream the way I had came...
The thirty minutes estimate I had been given was turning out to be badly wrong, as it was already five past eight in the morning and the mountains still seemed some way distant as I approached yet another bend...
... and then there it was: this was my first glimpse of the tunnel taken at some distance using the 250mm...
In appearance the tunnel mouth structure almost resembles masonry rather than concrete...
It was abutted by large spurs on either side...
If I recall correctly from my earlier research, the length of the tunnel itself is just over a full kilometer with the trans-basin diversion channel, of which it forms one part, approximately three kilometers in length. However, I need to fact check this when I get a moment...
A two-character inscription heads the tunnel mouth; the first character may, I believe, be "kou" meaning "mouth" but I'm unsure about the second character as it appears to be somewhat weather worn. I'll have to ask... (Later: it is the character "xi" [西], meaning "west" - the inscription is to be read from right to left as "west mouth").
Looking into the tunnel itself, the light penetrated only thirty yards or so and the rim lines appear to reveal that the tunnel was constructed in modular pieces. I would think that these lines would have been visible upon the tunnel's completion in 1930 and have only been accentuated by weathering since then. The other noteworthy thing about the tunnel mouth was the terrible sounds it emitted. The first one actually shocked me, it was so violent and unexpected. However, when I peered into the tunnel I saw no sign of movement whatsoever.
As I pulled the raft up to the northern spur to tie it up against a dead tree, I concluded that the (by now several times repeated) sound was the massively amplified echo of leaping fish within the tunnel.
On the northern spur there was a little staircase leading up over the tunnel's mantle...
Since the overgrowth was significant, I doubted that it would lead anywhere other than the crest of the mantle itself. Perhaps the intention was to allow local fishermen to sit on the edge and dangle their lines into the water near the tunnel's mouth to catch fish...
Looking across from the northern spur toward the southern spur; whilst the southern spur was covered in overgrowth, the northern spur had been largely cleared of all that and was employed by the locals for purposes related to waiting around; there were ashes and other small signs of cooking, so presumably one person would be waiting on the northern spur whilst another went out on a raft to check the fishing nets.
At 8.30am the eagles finally started turning up to keep an eye on me...
On the way back up the river, I made much swifter progress than I had on the way down. Partly this is because I was making fewer camera stops, partly because I was able to negotiate my way through the shallows better this time and partly because, with the early morning period fast disappearing, I had a growing sense of urgency to get back. I had a full work schedule for the afternoon through until the late evening. I did stop to take a few pictures on the way back however, birds first and foremost. This was one of the first shots of what I am convinced is a falcon of some sort, but it is far too distant to permit identification...
Whilst fiddling about with the camera, an Osprey took off about fifty, sixty yards behind me and I missed it. By the time I saw her again she was already up in the air too far away to get a half-decent shot of her...
After I made my way back through the shallows and around the last bends back to "Little Switzerland", I took a few shots looking downstream in the direction of the dam, intake tower and sinkhole...
I also determined to check out the baffling block structure I had noticed last time...
It was surprisingly surmounted by a little home-made brick wall, though the slope itself, buttressing and concrete baffling blocks must have been built by the Water Bureau...
It protected not another stream per se, but a vegetable patch among a reed-strewn stream bed...
Standing on the baffling block-slope looking back toward the dam and the intake tower...
On my final route back to the little harbour I briefly stopped to get some close-up shots of the sinkhole and the intake tower...
Of course, I didn't want to get too close to the sinkhole though I think the raft would merely have bumped up against its' edge. The water intake tower must be a few years old itself now, perhaps in the '70s contemporaneously with the construction of Tseng-wen reservoir...
On the way here, I had made a brief detour into Lioujia village itself to buy some dog food for the dog I remembered from last Sunday and from two years previously. However, though he was pleased to see me he only wanted to give me his paw and have me talk to him and pick ticks out of his fur; in the can of Pedigree Chum I set down for him, he had no interest whatsoever!
I left "Little Switzerland" pleased with what I had found, job well done, and eager to get back home to take my dogs out to the park and get something to eat. On the winding 174 around the back of Wushantou however, and just before the Chunghua outpost, I witnessed a little scrap of sorts between an eagle and a falcon - perhaps the same falcon I had seen earlier over the Guantian river in Little Switzerland. I slid the bike down into neutral and glided to a halt, but by the time I had the camera trained on them, they were both already well out of clarity-range and I had to make do with this (which is a magnified version of the original shot I took)...
It's not quite good enough to confirm an ID, but I suspect this is some species of Kestrel just because of the apparently light-brownish plumage. But who knows - I need a better telephoto lens.
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