Today we spent the day on a most amazing hike. We signed up for a guided trip to the east coast which is very rugged and mostly deserted. The mountains come right to the shore and the wind and weather hit hard. There were 14 hikers, eight from KAS, plus the guide, Mark, and his wing man. Mark is from Ireland but has been in Taiwan for over 20 years and does a lot of hiking, biking and generally exploring the island.

We knew the hike would be a challenge. It's 12 km long and right along the shore but most of the walking is on beach stones so it was six hours of scrambling over uneven, wobbly surfaces. But it was absolutely stunning.

It was a mostly overcast day so it wasn't too hot and the wind was blowing like crazy. It felt like it may have been coming from the edge of the typhoon that's pummeling the Philippines right now.

Some of the rocks were really interesting shapes.

Maybe pillow lava? maybe sedimentary? There were a lot of pieces of coral too.

You can tell how rugged the coastline is by the fact that we passed two ship wrecks. One had been there a number of years and was pretty well broken up. the other one was pretty recent - the last six months or so.

It's eerie to walk around such a big creature, imagining how the crew must have felt when they knew they were doomed. I wonder what happened to them? What happened to the cargo? Is the ship destined to slowly disintegrate on the rocks?

The sad part of the hike was the amount of trash that had washed ashore. There was more plastic strewn across the rocks than you could even begin to imagine cleaning up.

This hike was one of the most strenuous hikes I've been on and I was glad to have done it. It was good to really push myself past the pain and discomfort. My brain had to work hard to negotiate the uneven territory, my body had to work hard at all that balancing. It was six hours of being in the here and now, no daydreaming or zoning out. Even when I thought, really there's another headland to go around?!, I was thoroughly enjoying myself.