The World Is Not That Big

I frequently find great hikes in Taiwan because of my waterfall quest.  Typically I find a waterfall and just steer my car towards it.  Okay I usually use GPS I usually don’t know too much about the destination.  Sometimes this works out spectacularly and sometimes I merely find a waterfall.  Fuyuan was definitely the former.  If the waterfall isn’t enough there is the great hiking with views of Taiwan’s Rift Valley.  If that isn’t enough there are the butterflies.  If you need even more there is an excellent restaurant and resort on site.  I’m not sure if it’s possible to ask for more.

Looking east towards Taiwan’s Rift Valley from the Mountain Trail.  We rarely get beautiful blue skies like this in Kaohsiung.

There were still butterflies everywhere even though the best butterfly season runs from March to August.

I remember Monarch butterflies everywhere in the summers as a child.  In Taiwan the common butterfly is the Blue Tiger.

Ringlet Butterfly (Ypthima multistriata) – also very common in Taiwan

It’s almost always wet on Taiwan’s east coast.  Actually it’s almost always wet in Taiwan.  I have hiked trails where it hasn’t rained for weeks and they were still slippery from moisture.

I would guess that I am a little wrong on my butterfly and insect identifications at least half of the time.  This seems to be a crane fly which some parts of the world call Daddy Long Legs.  In Minnesota Daddy Long Legs are boring spiders.

LongYing Waterfall shoots out of the cliff in a small stream of water.

LongYing Waterfall