Luoshan Waterfall: A stream’s big leap

(泥火山). A couple of hundred meters down this narrow lane, a left turn deposited us at a car park beside a pretty, ornamental fish pond, giving fine views of Luoshan Waterfall, high on the mountainside.

Walking around the pond, a short, raised wooden pathway leads away from the pool to the extraordinary and rare mud volcano. The volcano’s two main vents continuously ooze thick, bubbling mud, and have inundated a large area of the surrounding scrub-covered countryside, including a telegraph pole now stranded in the midst of the muddy wasteland.

Several smaller vents bubble to the surface in the rice paddies about a kilometer away; the way to them is indicated by signs painted on the road. Especially interesting here, at least for botanists, is a patch of coarse-leaved ferns growing beside one of the mud vents; this species is especially rare, found at only three sites in Taiwan.

Past the junction beside the plaque, the road continues uphill towards the base of the mountains and comes to an end at a parking area after just a couple hundred meters. A raised wooden footpath from here climbs high up the side of the hillside, then leads into the canyon at the bottom of Luoshan Waterfall.

There’s a fine, if distant view of the main drop after about ten minutes, but keen explorers can continue, following the foundations of a now dismantled path deeper into the spectacular canyon below the falls, to the base of the lower of the two waterfalls. This one is a baby, falling only about twenty meters.

Above it however, only partly visible from this close-to, the main plunge of Luoshan Waterfall is a white plume a hundred meters high, falling into the depths. Taroko Gorge it may not be, but it’s ample reason to head a little further south on your next visit to Hualien County. It’s an area with several largely undiscovered yet very impressive attractions.

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