A place of natural beauty

The Taiwanese are serious about their environment.

Regular readers will remember that I spent a week in Taiwan, with seven other journalists from different countries, as the guest of the Ministery Of Foreign Affairs in May and was lucky enough to be taken to some of the country’s most wonderful eco sites.

The Taiwanese’s love of nature, and their dedication to preserving and studying the environment is illustrated perfectly in the Xitou Nature Education Area (XNEA), located in a concave valley in Nantou Lugu Town, Nantou County.

It is surrounded, on three sides, by the Lingtou, Fenghuang and Neishu mountain ranges making it a spectacular area to visit.

XNEA has been a research forest for over a hundred years and a beautiful day trip or holiday spot for tourists and locals alike since the 1970s.

The experimental forest was established in 1901, during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan (which lasted 1895 to 1945), as the Taiwan Practice Forest attached to the college of agriculture of Tokyo Imperial University.

Students were sent from the university in Japan to Taiwan to do research during their summer vacations.

Our guide added that it was also earmarked by the Japanese to be used to grow cypress trees for the manufacture of furniture in Japan.

The aim was to grow the trees and chop them down in Taiwan so the trees in Japan would not have to be sacrificed.

This project was, however, a failure as it turned out that the trees grown in Taiwan were hollow and therefore useless for furniture production.

Whether this is true or not I cannot say as there is no reference to this in any of the searches I have done.

The fact remains though that it was a valuable research area for Japanese, and later Taiwanese, university students and the forest boasts an impressive number of cypresses.

Following the restoration of Taiwan to Chinese rule in 1945, the forest was placed under the jurisdiction of the Forestry Bureau of the Provincial Government of Taiwan and renamed “The First Demonstration Forest Area”.

In the autumn of 1949, the forest was entrusted to the National Taiwan University, which re-established it as “the Experimental Forest” for use by students to study diverse plant species including Chinese cypress and ginko trees as well as gorgeous orchids which are cultivated in a greenhouse in the forest.

Except for a small section of well-preserved natural broad-leaf forest, the entire area has been developed and cultivated purposefully.

The forest is open to visitors and is popular destination with myriad beautiful sites to be seen in the forest which spans 2 500 hectares (25km2).

Attractions include the tranquil Daxue Pond, meaning university pond, which is 10m deep and features a bamboo bridge spanning the width of the pond.

Within the depths are huge Koi fish.

The postcard perfection of this site was probably the highlight of my visit to Taiwan and is worth a visit to the forest, even if this is the only site you seek out.

Be warned, however, that once the forest captivates you, you’ll lose a day wondering around taking in the myriad other wonderful views it has to offer.

With this in mind, it’s best to set out in good walking shoes or, for the not so fit, to hire one of the golf carts available at the kiosk at the entrance to the forest.

My other highlights in the forest were the 3 000-year-old Giant Tree and the 180m sky walkway.

At 46m tall and 16m wide the Giant Tree is quite a sight, and offers weary walkers a welcome place to rest, have a drink and drink in your surroundings.

The sky walk is 22.6m (or seven storeys) above the forest floor and offers a birds-eye view of the various fauna and flora in the forest – much like a canopy tour without any special gear to get you from one point to another.

Of course, just because you can look down doesn’t necessarily mean you should.

Sometimes looking straight ahead, or even up is where the best sights are.

As some of us were walking along the walk way – turns out three of my fellow journos were acrophobic – I came eye-to-eye with a pair of cheeky squirrels who seemed to be following our progress around the circular walk, jumping from tree to tree as we moved around.

Each time we stopped to take in the beauty below, so did they.

It was also from this vantage point that we were able to see a fraction of the 7 000 species of bird resident in the forest.

The XNEA is a definite must see for any traveller visiting this beautiful country.