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Updated Thursday, December 6, 2007 0:00 am TWN, By Richard Saunders, Special to The China Post



	The golden roof of the Confucius Temple is a major landmark on Tiger's Head Hill. More Photos (3)

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Tiger’s Head Hill Park: A pleasant place to spend an afternoon in Taoyuan

Opposite the car park, a children’s playground in dire need of a few repairs and a lick of paint provides a thoroughly unpromising prelude, but ignore this and take one of the paths leading up onto the wooded hillside above the car park. After just a short climb, the surroundings become much more agreeable. Many ornamental species of trees such as eucalyptus, bamboo, palm, camphor, flowering plum and azalea have been planted in recent years, giving the hillside the air of a botanical garden. The first goal (about a 15-minute walk) is Sanfen Hill (三分山), which marks the edge of Tiger’s Head Hill Park, but carry on walking and a network of paths continue on into the natural, undeveloped hills beyond, and the most enjoyable part of a visit to this place. The signposts soon peter out, and hikers are left to explore at will.

On our visit we wandered happily for several hours, tracing a route up the ridge to the main summit of Tiger’s Head Hill (and several fine viewpoints, despite a very modest elevation of 231 meters) and watching the activities of a group flying radio-controlled aircraft from a large, flat area of bare red earth.

On the way back through the park, two things caught our eye. On the slopes high above the clamor of the children’s playground, a large wooden viewing platform gives a very fine panorama over Taoyuan City and a large swathe of the plains surrounding it, which look quite attractive from up here.

The woodlands surrounding the platform are an equal attraction, especially in autumn, when they’re smothered with the showy pink flowers of the Flamegold tree (Koelreuteria henryi Dummer), which is native to Taiwan. Finally, just before returning to the car park, a look inside the impressive structure standing beside the road nearby made a worthwhile diversion.

The beautiful orange-tiled roof that caught our attention belongs to the Taoyuan Confucius Temple. It’s a fairly recent building, but rather impressive, and like the rest of Tiger’s Head Hill, a haven of peace just meters from the hustle of the modern city that now surrounds it on three sides.

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