Where the wild things are: Guansi Bat Cave

Hearing the squeaking of countless bats over to the left, however, we stumbled in the direction of the sound, down a branching passage, and shone our torches into a wide crack in the wall. The light startled into flight a cloud of bats which began madly circling in the torchlight, several escaping the chamber and brushing past our ears as they darted for the entrance.

Having unintentionally caused mass panic in the bat chamber, we quickly turned our torches in the opposite direction and took a look at the rest of the cave. Climbing down the rope ladder at the entrance to the cavern had been a challenge, but the second ladder was a tougher climb still, and after a quick try it was clear that going any further would be a dangerous proposition. We'd already disturbed the bats quite enough, anyway.

Safely back at the entrance to the bat cave, we still had one other place in our sights: the so-called Blue Green Waterfall (碧綠瀑布). Reached by a steep and extremely muddy trail down the hillside below the cave entrance, the waterfall is unlike any other I know in Taiwan.

Walking the last few meters up to the waterfall stepping on dry rocks in the bed of the fast-flowing stream, the waterfall cliff came into view ahead, but curiously it was completely dry. Only when we reached the plunge pool at the base of the falls did we discover the stream gushing out a small black hole at the base of the cliff.

The water in the stream disappears upstream into a sinkhole, to emerge back into daylight only here, at the foot of the waterfall. It's a bizarre sight, and, for Taiwan a unique one.

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