We're in Hualien City on the east coast of Taiwan

and in Taiwan, you'll find that most of the large cities with big populations of people are on the west coast

and the east coast is more beautiful nature

and a national park called Taroko National Park where we are headed right now.

It's named after Taroko Gorge, which looks incredible.

There's amazing views and hikes that you can do

so we have rented a scooter - I've got two helmets here

and Marc, I'm sorry, I'm calling dibs on this one.

One has a sparkly star and racing stripes and one doesn't so…this is mine.

I want that one!

Let's go.

Oh I forgot to unlock it!

We forgot that the lock is still on the wheel of the scooter.

There we go.

Got it?

Yeah.

Okay…we've got snacks, we've got helmets, we've got fuel, we have sort of a map.

Raincoats.

Let's go!

Ahhh!

Other way!

This way!

An excellent start!

Started to rain.

Ahhh!

These are no longer sunglasses, these are rain glasses now.

Yeah, pretty much.

There's no sun to speak of.

The visor's kind of hard to see out of so I'm just keeping my sunnies on.

You can't see very well right now but I promise there are mountains right up there.

Really big, beautiful mountains.

Marc and I drove a scooter in Toronto for what like 9 years?

Yeah.

And they…we had two of them and they were both Taiwanese brand.

SYM.

So it's pretty cool - it feels kind of at home to be in Taiwan on a scooter, don't you think?

Yeah, yeah.

It's like a homecoming.

It's nice.

Yeah.

This would've been a good day to wear waterproof mascara.

I can't even see 'cause it's in my eyes.

I'm trying to like cry to get the mascara out.

Oh that burns though.

Oh yeah…I just saw a little teardrop roll down.

Looks black.

You can see here how soaked my feet are.

Seems like a good day to go hiking!

Mainly I just want to make sure you get it out of your eyes.

So you can enjoy the….lack of a view!

Oh yeah that helps.

It's like a carwash on my eyes.

Now that I've stopped at a gas station, I can see.

Let's go…again.

♬ I can see clearly now, the rain…hasn't gone. ♬

Yeah I was going to say... you can't quite finish that lyric.

Here we go.

We're inside the gorge now in Taroko Gorge and wow!

It is stunning in here.

Oh my god!

We're passing all these signs that say that you should wear a helmet while you're in Taroko National Park

and then there's all these places that say there's a helmet borrow just up the road so...

I guess we're already wearing helmets.

I think it's because of all of the um, the rock falls that happen here

so they're suggesting that you wear a helmet.

How's your extremely wet scooter ride been through the gorge here?

I mean it's gorgeous but it's just a shame that it's so wet and cloudy.

I think you mean to say it's “gorge-ous.”

This was a setup wasn't it?

To see if I'd say that?

It was.

Okay.

I'm fine with it.

Let's go.

We just passed the sign for the Swallow Grotto Trail

and that's what we've been heading towards so I think we are getting close.

The rain has stopped and we've made it to the beginning of the Swallow Grotto Trail.

That's where we've been headed this whole time.

It's absolutely stunning here and I cannot wait to walk more inside this gorge.

So Swallow Grotto Trail actually seems to be a road that goes along the gorge

and it…it almost appears as though you could drive through the entire thing

so we're going to actually go back and get the scooter

and then we can pull over whenever we want to.

Might be able to see a bit more.

Yeah.

But I'm just thinking as we're walking along here about what it took to build this road,

like through all of these tunnels and there's these sheer drops off the side.

Like I can't imagine.

I've been getting queasy just walking along here looking down at the water.

I can't imagine building it.

It's incredible.

So you can see there's a…a road over there and then the river flows through.

This part of the…the gorge, Swallow Grotto Trail, is I think about a half a kilometre long

and you can see how narrow it gets in parts there.

It's absolutely stunning.

You have to be really careful in here because, obviously it's a gorge

so there's a lot of things you can hit

and even taking off there's a huge rock jutting out there so…

So we just tried to fly the drone and I didn't know what Marc was doing.

I was flying it really controlled and then just all of a sudden it went rogue

and it started flying literally into… towards one of the walls in the gorge here

and so then I tried to fly it back and it was just not responding

and then I was able to fly it close enough that we could grab it

but I honestly feel sick right now.

I'm shaking.

That was really scary.

I thought it was a ghost piloting the drone or something.

The way it was moving was really eerie and I…

It was really eerie.

I said to Marc like, 'what are you doing?'

He's like, 'I'm not doing that'.

Yeah.

So we just brought it back and then… it was floating like…

or, you know, floating like right over here and

I just reached out and grabbed it, which is not how we normally catch the drone but…

At one point I was trying to just raise it up so you could grab it and it was not responding

and it was just kind of sitting out there by itself.

That's why it felt like a ghost.

It was almost like 'na na na na na na'.

Yeah.

It was really weird.

Maybe there's ghosts here in the Swallow Grotto.

Anyway, I'm glad we have drone back.

Uhh!

Baby's back!

Baby is back!

Never do that again!

Bad drone!

Bad drone!

Are you still shaking?

I'm still so shaky.

Do you feel like you can drive?

I'm going to go very slow.

Okay.

I'm good with that.

I feel kind of queasy.

Okay.

Don't back up too much.

Okay, yeah.

There's a huge…this is what's behind me.

Sheer drop.

Eee!

Where I'm standing right now, according to a sign over there,

is the best view of the Taroko Gorge, period.

And what I love about the Taroko Gorge especially is that these rocks behind me…

these are made of marble.

But they weren't always marble.

Over 200 million years ago they started out as coral and little marine organisms

and over millions of years, they piled up and up and up and they became limestone

and then as tectonic plates shifted and lots of other magic happened,

they turned into marble and so that's what you see now.

And this is the Liwu River behind me and it is just cutting down through the rock even as we speak

and the gorge just gets deeper and deeper as that happens and it's incredible to just

know all of the background and see how incredibly gorgeous it looks and

I'm just glad that we made it this far in the rain to see this incredible view.

I can't stop looking at this view.

Maybe we should just live here.

That sounds like a good plan except for the rain.

Yeah.

We should've brought a tent.

But you know what?

We could go stay set up shelter in there.

That's a good spot.

Marc and I just pulled off the road to have a bite to eat and uh,

you've already got our chips open.

I couldn't wait.

We haven't had this kind before.

Kyushu Seaweed Lay's.

Oh.

Are they good?

Have you had one yet?

I have.

They're really good.

We also brought…this is uh just a bun with like corn, cheese, ham.

Oh! Lemon Pocky.

One of my absolute favourites.

This is scallion cheese bun.

And from 7-11, Marc picked up one of these rice wraps.

And then just a couple of water bottles.

I love having roadside picnics.

Me too.

This…look at this.

I know.

It's incredible.

Mmm.

Oh just having lunch with my friends.

This is just weird.

These roads are so beautiful but they're not the roads I want to be on after dark so…

Not so much.

And in the rain so we're just making our way out of the national park now back to the main road.

We're making our way out of the park

but we didn't want to leave without seeing this shrine behind me.

It's one of the most famous landmarks in the whole national park.

It's called the Eternal Spring Shrine

and unfortunately the reason it's here is a very sad one.

It's built to commemorate in 1958, 212 workers who died

while constructing a really important highway in Taiwan, the Central Cross-Island Highway.

It was the first one linking the east and west that went through the central mountain range here.

So it's really important and this has been destroyed by landslides a couple of times and rebuilt.

This latest one was built in 1989 and the reason for the name Eternal Spring

is because you have these natural waters that seem to flow right through the temple

and go into the Liwu River here.

And that is called the Eternal Spring Waterfall and it just feels very calm and very tranquil here.

We are headed back towards Hualien City now.

We've got about an hour's drive.

It has been a rainier day than we expected but still really fun

and I hope that you guys enjoyed coming along to see Taroko National Park

and just driving this incredible road through the gorge.

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Bye!