XIMEN TO XINDIAN RIVER CYCLE PATH (新店溪自行車道)

For more information, please visit Xindian Construction.

Distance: 18.9km

Time: 1½ hours at a pretty good speed and without too much stopping.

Difficulty: 1.5/10 &#; the only real difficulty is finding the entrances and exits to the park and where to pick-up/drop off the bikes. 18km is a reasonable distance too, but the surfaces are flat and smooth so it goes by easily. On a windy day this might be a lot harder since the wind is quite strong along these riverside parks.

Total ascent: about 98m, but that&#;s very spread out and not really noticeable.

Water: I think I probably only took 500ml, but there are plenty of places to get out and get more if necessary.

Shade: almost none &#; you&#;ll need to cover up if you&#;re sun shy.

Mobile network: clear throughout.

Enjoyment: the enjoyment gotten from this ride progresses as you go along, the views change from dull city to picturesque mountains and the ending is a really pretty location. One of my friends who has done this particular path said that he enjoyed it so much that it encouraged him to get his own bike and start cycling more.

Other: Bitan is a good place to stop for lunch or dinner and a wander, so give yourself time for that too.

Jump to the bottom of this post for a trail map, GPX file, and transportation information.

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From the Nishi Honganji Square YouBike stand, take a right onto Section 2, Changsha Street and keep heading straight.

Keep heading straight until you have passed Bangka Fude Temple, after that turn left on Hehuan South Road.

The entrance to the river park is on the right just after you&#;ve turned onto Hehuan South Road. It&#;s easy to miss the first time. Just through the gate, you&#;ll need to cross a scooter-only road, the scooters come really fast, so either press the button to get the traffic lights working, or be very cautious.

After crossing the road, turn left and cycle south until you meet the main cycle path.

Pretty much from here until the end, the path is flat and easy. At the junction in the picture, keep towards the right. The grassland and mudflats along the river just beyond the junction is a favourite for local bird watchers. It&#;s designated as being Taipei&#;s city waterbird refuge (&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;), I think the two websites relate to the same place, but the English is poor. The area here is special because the waters flowing from the river mix with the tidal waters of the sea to make the river very slow moving. Additionally, the nutrient rich sediment coming from the rivers forms sandbars which make for a perfect foraging ground for migratory birds as they pass through. Originally the protected area was smaller, but these days it stretches quite a long way up the Xindian river all the way to Yongfu bridge.

The cycle path curves left to pass under Huajiang Bridge. Every time I&#;ve passed this way there have been a lot of stray dogs sat around here. It looks like someone takes scraps to feed them under the bridge. I don&#;t know what they would be like with other dogs, but they seem to be completely oblivious to all the people passing through.

Looking out from a small bridge over an inlet you can see where Huajiang bridge arrives into Banqiao District. Raised above the land, the Taipei expressway skirts close to the edge of the water, and several boats moored to the far bank give away the location of Huajiang dock.

As you cycle along the banks of the river, the cycle path passes through many different areas of park.

From the point of entry to here, you will have passed through Longshan Riverside Park, Huajiang Park, Shuangyuan Riverside Park and Huazhong Riverside Park, (which apparently has a campground). The next park you&#;ll pass is Machangting Memorial Park.

This parcel of land has a somewhat unsavoury past. During the White Terror era (Taiwan&#;s years under martial law), this stretch of riverbank was commonly used as the execution spot for political dissidents. There are some photos online of people being led to their deaths here. After the lifting of martial law in the s, the park was used for horse racing and training, and then in , the (then) mayor of Taipei, Chen Shui-bian revealing a plan to turn it into a park which would memorialise those who died during the White Terror period. Now a simple mound and a small plaque stand to commemorate the horrors of the past.

Cycling through there on a beautiful and sunny afternoon, it is easy to miss the traces of the past, and even harder to reconcile what the place was like back then with the place of relaxation and recreation that it is now.

The path towards Xindian veers to the right here. There is pretty good signage along the whole route.

An oBike lurks behind a double happiness sculpture.

As the cycle lane enters Guting riverside park, you can choose between a wobbly path or a straighter path nearer the river. Both rejoin after a short distance, so either is ok. This park is maybe the cutest of all the ones you pass through on this route, with lots of Taiwan-style sculptures in one area.

Just after passing under Yongfu bridge (which has some large water pipes running alongside it and a sheltered playground built into the slope), you get this dramatic view of Shuiyuan Expressway curving next to the river.

Just a little further on from here, you will pass the live music venue, Pipe, and a little further still you can see the ramshackle-seeming buildings of Treasure Hill Artist Village to your left.

Following the expressway, keep straight and head over the small bridge. This is where the Jingmei river joins the Xindian river.

(The cycle path to the left will take you towards Muzha.)

The bridge is a slightly humped, yellow-railed thing with a good view of the nearby golf practise range.

Somewhat jarringly, the bike path disappears at the other side of the bridge and you find yourself cycling through a small industrial area. This section is pretty short though, and where the small road joins a bigger one, the bike trail heads to the right.

Near the place where the road becomes bike path again, you can find this sign. The phonetically correct, (but actually wrong), spelling of the work &#;walk&#; is even stranger because these types of signs are normally pretty well done.

After passing under the bridges, the real beauty of this cycle way starts to show itself. The further you get from the city, the more mountainous the backdrop becomes.

I found the frame supplied by this bridge to be especially aesthetically pleasing. The hard grey concrete lines surrounding the swaying silver grass and mountains beyond.

Even something about the weird uniformity of these apartment blocks was visually pleasing.

As you near the end of the cycle path, you pass under the twin stretches of Highway 2 Bitan bridge. This impressive structure was built to try and compliment the beauty of Bitan&#;s natural surroundings, and it somehow achieves that despite essentially being just a huge amount of concrete. At the time, it was the only bridge in Taiwan to use this particular method of construction (known as prestressed concrete), and when it opened in , it became one of Bitan&#;s tourist attractions. Although I suspect most people who visit now are more interested in the suspension bridge, you can still enjoy the pleasing curves of the road bridge.

100 metres or so upriver of the highway bridge is the suspension bridge. Crossing over this will lead you to a network of small trails up the hill beyond.

The pictures here are from a Tuesday morning cycle, so there weren&#;t a huge number of people on the trail. At least one canine and his keeper were put having fin though.

The area here really doesn&#;t feel like Taipei, it is a lot quieter and more laidback-feeling. People pedal around on the still water of the Xindian river in pedalos, and other people watch them from up on the suspension bridge.

I followed the bike path past a row of restaurants until it curved left and ended in a car park. A ramp just beyond the toilet block takes you up, and then there are steps down the other side where you can dock your YouBike. (The steps even have a channel in the centre for walking your bike down.)

How to get there

Google maps address: I started from the Nishi Honganji Square YouBike stand and entered the river park through Guiyang Evacuation Gate. Then I returned the bike to the Bitan Ferry YouBike Stand.

GPS location:

• Nishi Honganji Square YouBike Stand &#; N25 02.440 E121 30.460
• Guiyang Evacuation Gate &#; N25 02.455 E121 29.910
• Bitan Ferry Carpark Exit &#; N24 57.120 E121 32.280
• Bitan Ferry YouBike Stand &#; N24 57.185 E121 32.250

Public transport: to get to the first YouBike stand turn left out of exit on from Ximen MRT Station then walk south on Zhonghua Road. Then at the far end, walk north up Xindian Road until you arrive at Xindian MRT Station.

Further reading: the government has some basic information about the path (in Chinese). Here you can find some more basic info about all the various parks that the trail passes through. And this page goes into a bit more detail about a couple of the places you&#;ll pass through.

Nearby trails:

Xindian River Cycle Map

GPX file available here on Outdoor Active. (Account needed, but the free one works just fine.)

Come and say hi on social media:

This is the bit where I come to you cap in hand. If you&#;ve got all the way down this page, then I can only assume that you&#;re actually interested in the stuff I write about. If this is the case and you feel inclined to chip in a few dollars for transport and time then I would appreciate it immensely. You can find me on either Ko-fi or Buy Me a Coffee.

For more information, please visit Xindian Construction.

Lion&#;s Head Mountain (or Shitou Shan), is an unassuming peak at the southernmost terminus of Taipei&#;s Songshan-Xindian line which holds unexpected opportunities for adventure. It is very popular with the local retirees, who seem to come out every morning to walk this network of paths. The whole hill is well furnished with shelters, looping trails and changing city-scapes at every turn. To confuse matters, there is a more famous Lion&#;s Head Mountain in Miaoli, and another popular one which is on the border of Xindian and Sanxia (both of which are superb &#; although very different &#; hikes).

Distance: About 7km, but this could be shortened (and maybe extended) depending on your time.

Time: 2-3 hours should be plenty.

Difficulty (regular Taiwan hiker): 2/10 &#; Just the convoluted potential routes and some steps, everything else is easy enough.

Difficulty (new Taiwan hiker): 4/10 &#; The paths are a bit of a maze, but a device with GPS capabilities will help. Also, it&#;s bordered on all sides by town, so you&#;d end up back at street level at some point. There aren&#;t any flat portions either, but the fact that the trail alternates between ascent and descent helps.

Total ascent: About 300m to a maximum elevation of around 240m.

Water: I think I drank about 0.8L.

Shade: This trail is pretty well shaded for the mountain section, and not at all when you get back down to road level.

Mobile network: Mostly ok except for a couple of black spots.

Enjoyment: Save this for when you&#;ve got half a day that you don&#;t know how to use. That way you&#;ll be able to enjoy it best.

Permit: None needed.

Jump to the bottom of this post for a trail map, GPX file, and transportation information.

Initially I had planned to do a different, tougher hike, but a confluence of small misfortunes led to me settling for something easier. And so it was that I found myself, slightly disappointed, at the exit of Xindian MRT Station.

When you see a post office on your left, turn left up Wenshan Road. You&#;ll pass Wenshan Junior High-school on your right, just keep going.

At the top of the road you&#;ll come to a junction with Longren Road. Cross over and head towards what looks at first glance to be a temple archway, (it&#;s not, it is the entrance of a vocational high school), the trail starts just to the right of the arch.

The trail climbs up some steps and passes below a building where a black dog stared down at me, and then reaches a junction. When I went, there was construction underway on the lower trail, so I had no choice but to head up on the righthand trail, (I think the lower one just leads back to the road anyway.) Beyond this, the trail becomes a raised flight of steps for a short way.

At the first junction, I took the lower path on the left because my goal for the day was to do the longest possible loop of the hill, so I didn&#;t want to steam straight up to the top.

The trail curved around the side of the hill, one or two further paths climbed up, but I ignored them until arriving at this shelter (&#;&#;&#;&#;&#;/Meihua Pavilion). Two women were sat here discussing the complications of having lazy offspring, and how that lead to them having to be shipped off to more far-flung reaches of Taipei.

From here I followed the steps as they curved uphill. (Left and up in the photo, but right and up as you walk it.)

Shortly the trail arrived at another junction, and rather than taking the quick route up to the right, I headed straight over passing the clump of bamboo. The trail then starts to dip a little.

Stairs head down to another shelter (&#;&#;&#;/Zhongshan Pavilion), and then I followed the path as it headed to the right. Actually, there are two paths to the right, one is paved and the other is a dirt trail &#; they both join up after a couple of hundred metres.

Not long after that, the trail hits another junction. The path on the left heads down to Zhongyong Road, and the right up towards Yushan Pavilion (&#;&#;&#;) so I turned right again and started to climb.

If you pay close attention to the rocks and trees to the left of the trail as you climb up you should spot this Buddha head affixed atop a rock. It is facing a small altar which is completely hidden from the trail &#; you have to take a short detour to go and find it.

The trail climbs to a third shelter Yushan or Jade Mountain Pavilion where you can look out over towards Taipei 101, and then turns a tight and continues uphill some more.

For a brief spell, the path scrambles up rocks and then follows the base of a large rock face, then it turns into steps once more. Here I turned right and headed uphill.

Heading left here is possible &#; you will just bypass a short section of trail.*

At the top of the climb you get some good views from Shizilu Pavilion (&#;&#;&#;&#;). On the day I went, there were great big clouds with patches of blue in between, so I got to watch the sun chasing across the city and highlighting the places it skimmed over.

Heading down from the peak, the path splits almost immediately, and I took the left trail.

*A little way further on you&#;ll meet the trail you could have taken to skip the view from the peak. It joins from the left, so you&#;ll want to head straight over.

At the next junction, straight over heads directly up to Qingnian Pavilion (&#;&#;&#;), but since I was still trying to do the longest possible route, I took the more meandering trail on the left.

The wooden paths here are quite pretty in their own way and (they appear to) strike a good balance between making the path accessible to more people and maintaining the natural environment.

The path curved around in an arc to arrive at Cihui Pavilion (&#;&#;&#;) &#; the trail I arrived on is the one on the left in the above photo and the one I took when I continued continued went through the shelter.

Whilst here, I stopped to have a look at the view from the look-out spot, and ate some of the fruit I&#;d brought with me. There was a Christian group in the shelter singing religious songs, mostly kids and their grandparents, and the singing was a lot more melodic than the usual karaoke you encounter on the mountains. There was one call-and-response type song that the kids especially enjoyed &#; it even seemed to have actions to go along with the lyrics.

(Lions Head Mountain is actually just uphill from this point, I never made it up there, I can&#;t remember why.)

After walking through the shelter, the path immediately continues up, (ignore the other trail leading down to the left).

There is quite a bit of climbing to do, but as with all the other climbing on this trail, it&#;s never too much at one time.

The path continues on through an extensive outdoor gym. The equipment has spread to either side of the trail here, and I&#;m sure you&#;d find it full of lithe grandpas if you visited before 10am.

The highest point on this section of the trail is Changshou Pavilion (&#;&#;&#;), a three-storey structure which commands a view over the river valley up towards Wulai. I stopped here to finish my fruit and have a coffee, (entirely unnecessary, but since I&#;d brought it with me, I thought I may as well use it). A few people passed through the clearing whilst I was there, but none realised that I was lurking on the top floor. It made me recall the childhood excitement of being high up in a tree and watching unaware dog-walkers pass on by.

Heading on from Changshou Pavilion, the path is all downhill. It passes through one final shelter, Mingde Pavilion (&#;&#;&#;), and then turns left. As the path gets flatter, the trees on either side give way to farmland.

The trail emerges at the top of a small community, and then from here it&#;s a walk down the road all the way back. The roads here are kind of a crossroads, if you stand with the road you can see running left uphill, then cross over and head along the straight ahead road going down, (this is Zhangchun Road/&#;&#;&#;).

After passing an outdoor pool, the path bends around to the left and runs along a strange section of land which looks like it might have been a park in a previous life. It&#;s home to a pair of zebras and this rhino. If anyone knows of why they&#;re here, I&#;d love to find out the details. Maybe I should start to collate these odd things on a map. Like the goats somewhere near Dalunwei Shan, the face in the rock on the Xianjiyan Trail and the dinosaurs you can see if you walk down from Hongludi Tudigong Temple &#; there&#;s so many strange and wonderful things hidden in plain sight.

After following the lane all the way back down to river level turn right and start heading back towards Xindian MRT Station.

Before long I was able to join the water and follow Qingtan River as it flowed towards its confluence with Xindian River. Where the river path passed the old ferry terminal I took a right turn through the carpark and followed Xindian Road to get to the station.

How to get to Xindian Lion&#;s Head Mountain Trail

Google Maps address: this walk starts and ends at Xindian MRT Station.

GPS location:

• I entered the trail system at N24 57.400 E121 32.430
• I left the trail through the housing estate at N24 57.365 E121 32.890

Public transport: take the green line to the southernmost terminus at Xindian &#; head out of the ticket barriers and turn towards the right.

Nearby trails:

Xindian Lion&#;s Head Mountain Hiking Trail Map

GPX file available here on Outdoor Active. (An account is needed, but the free one works just fine.)

Come and say hi on social media:

This is the bit where I come to you cap in hand. If you&#;ve got all the way down this page, then I can only assume that you&#;re actually interested in the stuff I write about. If this is the case and you feel inclined to chip in a few dollars for transport and time then I would appreciate it immensely. You can find me on either Ko-fi or Buy Me a Coffee.

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