Ancient masterpiece: Ten Thousand Year Gorge

Our homestay at the little settlement of Jhanghu (樟湖) is just a couple of kilometers away and can almost be seen, but from there it’s been over 20 kilometers and 40 minutes riding along scenic back roads to get to this point, as the original, direct road was closed when a tunnel collapsed during the 1999 earthquake. I’d tried walking along the remains of it once before, but now it’s too overgrown to follow even on foot without using a machete.

We’re heading for Ten Thousand Year Gorge (萬年峽谷), and as the road descends it gets rougher; in several places, small landslides narrow the road down to half its usual width. A lofty and graceful waterfall, coming in and out of sight as we wind down, plummets off the edge of a sheer cliff and falls in many narrow jets, swollen by the recent annual “plum rain” season (“meiyu” in Chinese) from May to July.

Finally, after the second tunnel, the road ahead is blocked by a barrier and a sign in Chinese points the way down a grassy track to the left. In a hundred meters or so, we’re at the entrance to Ten Thousand Year Gorge, marked by a huge, inscribed boulder beside the track.

On foot now, a rough track continues down to the base of the deep canyon of Neihu Stream, passing a large metal shelter with a sign offering “iced aiyu jelly” and cold drinks. Another couple of minutes and Ten Thousand Year Gorge comes into view below. Perhaps “gorge” is the wrong name for this natural curiosity, where the Neihu Stream has bitten down through the mountains until it’s exposed a flat bed of bare rock.

Continuing its slow process of erosion, the stream has cut a narrow defile through the rock, in places up to 10 meters deep, exposing the many layers of strata and creating a series of deep pools linked with cascades as it finds its way down.

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