Water Views

January 5, 2020

Treadling the Kaohsiung Canal Paths and Beach Bikeways

By sheer luck we found, and then cycled the path beside a canal flowing just behind our hotel. Seven hours later by following the water, we’d had a lot of fun cycling about 35 kilometres of mostly quiet back streets, warehouse markets and the working harbour. We also caught a ferry across to a nearby island and cycled its beach side paths.

We’ve been won over by Kaohsiung City. It’s a delightful place with eye-catching street sculptures, great street food, cool sea breezes, quirky craft markets and bicycle friendly infrastructure. Sure it is a big industrial city, but it balances this functionality with lots of attractive public spaces and people centred developments.

We had a very memorable and enjoyable day tootling slowly around on our bikes at a leisurely pace just exploring the area with no real plan. I especially enjoyed finding our hotel was located in an area with a lot of Indonesian people and restaurants. It was like finding old friends.

We followed the Love River bikeway to and from the harbour.

Some of the many outdoor artworks in the warehouse market area.

Eating this seemed like a good idea at the time. It wasn’t. Way too sweet. Note to self. Don’t get fooled by good looking sweets.

A wall tap turned into an art piece at the warehouse markets.

Being a Sunday, lots of families were in the harbour market area. This swing was popular.

Hard to miss Kaohsiung’s tallest building. The guide book said it’s shape is rocket like. Saturn or Titan?

Joe gives the thumbs up to today’s mostly traffic free riding.

A decent sized dry dock. Ship building and maintenance seem to be major industries here.

Busy afternoon on the island. This is the exit view from the ferry crossing.

Joe discovering another aspect of a cycle touring. It’s not all headwinds and motor scooter traffic.

One or two ships queuing up to enter the harbour.

Heavy holiday traffic on the island bike path

Amazing display of synchronised kite flying. It was mesmerising to watch these guys in action.

Just some of the hundreds of kites. It is a major activity here.

Player coaches keeping an eye on the flying kites.

Family dog celebrates its 7th Birthday with a Sunday outing in the beach park.

The roll on roll off ferry service we used to cross to the island. It only takes about 15 minutes to cross.

Today's ride: 35 km (22 miles)
Total: 230 km (143 miles)

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