![[ Giant Buddha Holding Earth! ] HsinChu South East Back Road Ride Part 1 竹東翻山越嶺騎之一](http://modernblackhand.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/hsinchu-south-east-back-road-ride-1.jpg "[ Giant Buddha Holding Earth! ] HsinChu South East Back Road Ride Part 1 竹東翻山越嶺騎之一")
- HsinChu South East Back Road Ride Summary
- Background
- Start: DouHuan Elementary
- Old Church Ruins, Reservoir & Giant Buddha
- Country Back Road to BeiPu
- BeiPu Old Street
- Continued to Part 2!
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HsinChu South East Back Road Ride Summary
- Self Ride.
- Starting/ending Location: Near DouHuan Elementary School 頭煥國小
- Bike Length: ~ 105 km. Elevation gain: ~ 1300 m.
- Hill profile: Two medium hills. Many short steep climbs.
- Good for: Adventure.
- Warning:
- Steep descend after first hill.
- Narrow road and heavy traffic on Route #122.
- Route Highlights:
- Old church ruins 十二寮天主堂.
- Giant Buddha complex.
- BeiPu Old Street 北埔老街。
- BeiPu cold spring 北埔冷泉。
- Zhang Xueliang Former Residence 張學良故居。
Background
It’s been a while since I did a long, adventure type ride. Originally I wanted to do a route near AliShan 阿里山, but recently that area had quite a lot of earthquakes (largest 5.5) and chance of rock falls seemed high (AliShan was famous for its stunning cliffs due to less stable geology).
So, without too much planning and checking every Google Street View, I decided to go north and quickly plot my HsinChu South East Back Road Ride route.
The goal was to experience the many-hill areas of HsinChu, then go onto Route #122 to scout the mountain road entrance towards another Shei-Pa National Park’s Visitor Center: GuanWu 觀霧.
Start: DouHuan Elementary
The starting point of my HsinChu South East Back Road Ride was near DouHuan Elementary east of ZhuNan County 竹南鎮. Weather was cloudy.
I picked here just for good parking space.
Great “mountains in the clouds” scenery!
Instead of going onto the famous Provincial High way #3 I choose local roads that went into small communities.
Community entrance sign.
At HsinChu there were many Hakka 客家 communities, having their own languages (Hakka) as well as cuisines.
Traditional Hakka road-side cloth washing station. Many were still in use. We’ll see more in this trip.
Now was also the rice harvest season. Taiwan usually could harvest rice twice a year.
Taking another bridge across river. There were quite a lot of rivers and creeks here.
As we crossed the river we linked onto Provincial Highway #3. Again we took another local bridge and entered another Hakka community.
We’ll crossed Highway #3 and entered the community at the background.
Bridge crossing again!
Going left.
Old bridge ruins.
The other bridge ruin was across the river.
The community was called “Bronze Mirror Village 銅鏡村”
Old Church Ruins, Reservoir & Giant Buddha
As we continued on our HsinChu South East Back Road Ride we entered a reservoir place: DaPu Reservoir area.
Waste of tax payers’ money…
The unexpected building here was an old church ruins. It looked very nice, while the cafe on its left side ruined the scenery somehow.
Old church ruins.
There was something big at the background…
As we passed through a bridge onto Happy Road 快樂路, we found a giant Buddha complex near the reservoir!
The bridge onto Happy Road.
…and there was this Buddha holding the Earth.
Country Back Road to BeiPu
Having enough of the Buddha, we headed onto more local roads towards a major old mountain town BeiPu 北埔.
Going right.
Guess what was this building? A pig farm!
Nice curvy local country roads.
Dr. Crab, the last thing you would expect within hilly areas!
Emei 峨嵋 town monument. The drawing depicted two local specialties: Ponkan and East Beauty Tea.
Here we briefly went back onto Provincial Highway #3.
More bridge!
Another old bridge ruins!
Persimmon tree.
Ponkan tree. Almost the season now.
Traditional rice storage building.
Crossing this bridge and we were almost to BeiPu!
BeiPu Old Street
Soon we arrived at the main town of our HsinChu South East Back Road Ride, BeiPu. A famous Hakka old town, BeiPu had quite a few historical buildings as well as old tea houses serving Lei Cha 擂茶.
Old temple.
BeiPu Catholic Church.
BeiPu Old Street entrance sign.
Local CiTan Temple 慈天宮. Just like any other Taiwan Old Streets, the temple was usually the old street center.
We’ll see the crowd in the afternoon when we passed BeiPu again.
