I didn’t leave Keelung as early as I would like, but I missed most of the traffic. I grabbed breakfast on the way out of town, but I prioritized leaving the traffic behind.
For the first 25 km I had dedicated bicycle path.
At the 11 km mark I turned into Wanli for a destination I’ve been tracking towards the entire trip. The Wanli UFO Houses (aka Futuros) — a neighborhood of abandoned futuristic houses near Wanli Beach. The UFO house village was constructed in 1980 by a Taiwanese businessman who copied (one might argue pirated) a Finnish design. At the time Wanli beach was one of the few places American servicemen could enjoy a beach vacation. However, the severing of diplomatic ties with the USA prevented the area from taking off, and the UFO resort town fell into decay.
From there I cycled to the nearby Yehliu Geopark, which features rocks carved by weathering and marine erosion.
Still concerned about the traffic, the smaller roads merged with the main highway. However, while I eventually lost the dedicated cycle path, and (mostly in towns along the way) the shoulder, traffic remained bearable until I approached Taipei.Things improved at the cycle path along the river, which brought me almost the entire last 25 km to John’s apartment in Taipei.
One last adventure – I didn’t quite agree with how OSMAnd routed me from the river to John’s. So I forced a few waypoints to route differently. When I arrived at MY final turn off the river, the path was up high narrow stairs over the flood wall, and then again back down. I decided to let the GPS win, backed up, and (mostly!) followed its guidance from there.
In addition to my usual post-trip organization, I have a number of tasks awaiting me when I get home. I can use this energy to hit the ground running. I’ve been waking up here at 5:00 am or 6:00 am almost the entire trip. Who knows how long it will take to resume my normal (well normal for me!) sleep schedule.