It would be an understatement to say that this day caught the both of us off guard. I know I haven't trained as much as should have but the mountains proved to be much more than we could have anticipated. I'm really glad we arrived and made it to our inn.
The morning started out beautifully. We woke up at 6:30 with the goal of starting our ride at 8. We had a quick complimentary breakfast from our inn. Then we set off to ride the first 33kms around the lake.
The first bit of our ride was quite easy, with a bit of a climb at the beginning but easy riding downhill for most. I think we averaged around 22kph around the lake. The scenery was so beautiful. We truly have an amazing Creator God who made all this.
After circling the lake we stopped in Puli for lunch. We had a big roast chicken meal. The food was really quite good- or we were just extra hungry.
The ride from Puli to Ching Jing was the worst. We were in high spirits though and were quite oblivious to what lay ahead (in hindsight I'm glad dad didn't tell me or I would've quit). We had 30 or so kms uphill climbing around 600 meters. Most of this journey wasn't as scenic as the morning. It was mostly just mountain passes with bendy roads beside barriered cliffs. It was a lot like the Sea to Sky highway from Vancouver to Whistler.
The ride was gruelling to say the least. Our pace slowed to about 8kph on most parts. It was a lot of 'just get to the next bend' and 'our meal at the end will be worth this pain'. We stopped many times along the way to catch our breath and for dad to update his Facebook status. Here are a couple shots:
One of my goals this trip is to glean wisdom from my dad and I have a list of life lessons I want to ask him about. During the ride I asked him what motivated him to endure these arduous rides (he had spent a month riding in the Himilayas in September). He said if you go slowly and steadily you're bound to get to where you're heading. He also said that he often sees the journey itself not as the necessary evil to get to an end but part of the experience. It made me think a lot about my own spiritual journey. We often prize the speed in which we arrive at our spiritual destinations/maturity but forget that our journey takes the conviction to plod ahead each step at a time. May we be encouraged to see our trek as not a race but also an experience, for pain is part of our growth in the journey heavenward.
Dad pointing to Ching Jing, our destination.
I think after 30 kms of uphill we finally couldn't ride any longer. The sun had set and my knee was locking up from all the climbing. We had a meal at a roadside noodle place and started just pushing our bikes up. What I thought would be about 30 minutes turned into 2 hours. Much of the time was spent in silence just trudging on. We had started at 8 and were nearing 12 hours on the road. I did manage to ask dad what his highlight of the day was and he replied with his usual contemplative optimism, "the scenery from this morning and spending time with you. It's not everyday you get to do stuff like this with your son." And at that moment I already knew that our journey to Taiwan was worth it. Whether my knee can handle another hill or not won't matter. It is indeed about the experience and not the destination. It's about the growth, the pain, the lessons and most of all- the company you travel with.
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