The surprisingly beautiful waterfalls of Sandiaoling (三貂嶺)

The second part of my trip was aimed at the three Sandiaoling waterfalls, namely Hegu, Motian, and Pipatung (Pipa Cave). First I took a Pingxi Line local train from Pingxi to Sandiaoling.

Sandiaoling is actually the only railway station in Taiwan not reachable by car and as such it is incredibly tiny, sandwiched in a tunnel, presumably protecting it from rockfalls:

At some points the platform is so narrow it only allows one person to walk!

Here you can see Puyuma Express emerging from the Sanzhuazi Tunnel on the Main Line from Yilan.

After getting off the train I met up with my friend Angela who was kind enough to join me and off we went! The trail starts at the abandoned Shuoren Elementary School:

A perfect target for UrbEx, if you ask me!

These toilets were actually fully functional… if a tad tiny bit smelly

There’s a map at the outset of the trail:

The trail starts very easy and extends alongside the Wufenliao River. The surroundings are not dissimilar from other trails in this corner of Taiwan. A lot of greenery, jungle-covered rocky outcrops and jagged yet low-lying hills:

Here one can see even more moss-covered stairs:

Then came the Hegu Waterfall:

Overall impressive, but you can only view it from afar.

The upper section is 9 meters tall and 25 meters wide, the lower part measures 15 meters across over a 6 meter drop.

Angela’s slo-mo video:

Then over a couple of suspension bridges…

Good only for two people to pass at a time.

…with more greenery to follow:

Shortly thereafter we reached the second level called Motian Waterfall and suddenly heard from the sky:

Player One. You have reached the second level!

Yay, that was a lot of fun! Here’s a slo-mo video from Angela:

It was impressive and Angela spotted a walkway hewn into the rock above:

You can see it in the top left part of this picture.

I thought it had to have been the trail to the next, Pipatung waterfall (the last – or the first – level, depending how you look at it) and that we would pass through it on our way further, but alas! No dice. Still, the third waterfall is fairly close.

You just need to scale some respectable aluminium ladders.

Pipatung waterfall manages to be even more impressive than the previous one (Motian)!

I think it’s because we went on the trip after 7 days of continuous torrential downpour.

I also have one long-exposure picture…

…as well as a stitched panorama:

A-a-a-a-a-nd…… a video. What else did you expect?

Pipa Cave waterfall directly feeds into the Motian waterfall:

Here’s Angela’s slow-motion:

We came to ~~stand~~ sit directly where Motian waterfall begins!

Time to go home. We could continue hiking throught the jungle all the way to Houtong of the Cat village fame (more on that perhaps later), but it was too late (past five o’clock) and night was fast approaching. So we retraced our steps through the enchanted forest…

…skipped from stone to stone to cross the mountain streams…

..scaled the flimsy suspension bridge one last time…

…descended the notorious mossy staircase…

…until we reached our starting point – Sandiaoling station.

…and we had tasty 牛肉麵 in in 松山 to top it off.