Taiwan 2014: Day 4 - Yehliu Geopark

It's our 4th day in Taiwan and we will be exploring the northern coast of Taipei! We will be going to Yehliu Geopark, Jiu Fen and Shi Fen as well as other destinations for sightseeing along the way. 

Breakfast at Sato Hotel was good enough to keep our stomach full for the road trip. Our driver picked us up from the hotel lobby at 9am and it took us about 40 minutes to reach Yehliu Geopark.

The driver was very chirpy and we chat along the way to our destination. He's very knowledgeable about the history/stories of the destinations that we were heading to. Weather was not very good that morning and it was drizzling along the way to Yehliu Geopark. Along the way, we saw some fishing ports and plenty of seafood restaurants.

According to our driver, there's lots of tourist from Mainland China at Yehliu Geopark. And he was right when we reached there, the entire carpark was full of buses carrying tourist from Mainland China. There's like more than 50 buses! Our driver was very thoughtful where he brought raincoats for us. 

The entrance fee to Yehliu Geopark is NT80 per adult. The queue to the ticket counter was surprisingly short. Probably those tour groups already bought their tickets beforehand. And the entrance ticket looks like this:

Here's the first thing which we saw; the cute princess rock formation. Err, this one is a fake one. It's man made!

Tada. At least we have a "rock sculpture" to take picture with and no other tourist are in the picture. You'll know why I say this at the end of this post.

My pic with the rock formation.

With the "cute princess". Had to thanks the driver for the raincoat. It was actually drizzling when we took this pic. 

The "Cute Princess" suppose to look like this:

The real "Cute Princess"!

The area was wet due to the rain and the soil was quite slippery. Without further delay, we joined the queue to take photograph with the "Queen's Head"; the iconic rock at Yehliu Geopark. This iconic rock is the center of attraction and it is said that the queen's head will be gone in future as the neck's length is getting thinner as time goes due to soil erosion. We were glad that there are on-going plans to save the queen's head by the local authorities. It would be a huge loss if this unique rock is gone.

The queue to take picture with this iconic rock is very very long. We spend the time admiring other rocks at that area while we queue. Do look to the left and right while you queue as there's some interesting rocks standing around you.

This looks like a cute mushroom.

Imperfections creates beauty.

A tiny "pond" with seawater.

Tiny holes on the rocks.

Soon, it's our turn to take the photograph with the Queen's Head. There's guards standing around the area. And you can only take limited shots with the iconic rock due to the long queue. And it was literally raining when it's our turn :(

A very precious moment with the Queen's Head.

We were all soaked with rain/seawater after our personal shots with the Queen's Head. And there's plenty of people trying their best to photograph themselves with the rock from all directions.

Another shot with the Queen's Head behind me! We were soaked from head to toe.

There's a toilet in the middle of the park and it's quite clean. We dried ourselves and continue our exploration before the storm comes :)

With the ocean behind me

See the crowd of people there?

Little ponds of water which is quite an eye opener.

Rainy day with eagles hunting above the sky.

Her's the infamous " fairy shoe" rock formation.

Behind pig is the "three" something rock formation. Can't remember the name but it suppose to be 3 pieces joined into one? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Rain Rain Rain!

Ancient clock?

It would be a beauty if it didn't rain.

Another unique rock formation.

This one looks like a group of little mushrooms to me.

Another side of the park.

See the red line on the floor? There's the furthest you can walk to. 

There's a lots of guards around asking people not to touch or climb or etc to the rock formation. However, it's sad to see that most tourist does not follow instructions. Barbaric people! It's because touching the rock formation might destroy it. Imagine there's thousands of people touching the rock everyday. And the some of the rock is not harden but it's just made of sand. Sad to see people actually climbing and sitting on the rock formation just to take photographs although the guards are scolding them.

And it's hard to have your photographs taken in the park because the tourist crowd is crazy! It will be better to come on a non-rainy day and anyone knows when it's low season at Yehliu Geopark?I would want to go again to Yehliu Geopark.

At the exit of the park, there's stalls selling food, souvenirs and dried seafood products. Do walk through the stalls to compare price as most of them are selling the same products.
And you can see the list of rock formations at Yehliu Geopark here.

If you have some time to spend, the Yehliu Ocean World is just right next to the Yehliu Geopark.