A guide to Taiwan’s northeast coastline

Visitors to Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, find themselves mesmerised by its elegant skyscrapers, multi-faith temples and bubble tea bars. But just outside the city is an entirely different world: one shaped by nature. On Taiwan’s northeast coast, the irresistible forces of earth, sea and sky have sculpted the enigmatic hoodoos of the Yehliu Geopark and the mangrove-filled estuary of the Tamsui River. There’s fascinating human history, too: the town of Tamsui presents a potted history of colonial Taiwan. With easy bus and train links out of Taipei, the following attractions make ideal day trips for a refreshing change of pace.

About an hour from Taipei is Yehliu Geopark, a popular spot for day-trippers and easily accessible by both guided tour and public bus. Here, the wind and waves have sculpted a Dali-esque surrealist rock landscape that is forever changing, sinking into craters or stretching towards the sky. Ever whimsical, the Taiwanese have given these formations names based on their appearance: Queen’s Head, Candle Rocks, Fairy Shoe.

In other parts of the world, these formations or “hoodoos” are formed out of sedimentary rock: weathering wears down a layer of soft rock while the harder rock resists. But in 2001, scientists found that the Yehliu formations were unusual, not only in their coastal location (most hoodoos form inland) but in their composition: they are made from the same type of rock throughout. The formations’ darkened edges are due to a reaction with seawater rather than different rock types.

As you stroll down the boardwalk, you’ll see fossilised urchins and sand dollars embedded in the stone. You’ll also see a statue of fisherman Lin Tien Jane: an everyday hero, who lost his life while trying to save a student from drowning.

Hop on the MRT (metro) in Taipei and follow the red line north, up the Tamsui River to the town that shares its name. Here, the river meets the sea, depositing sediments that, over millennia, have formed plains and marshlands. It’s fertile ground for red mangroves, which grow along the riverbank and protect the land from tidal erosion and typhoons.

At the Tamsui River Mangrove Conservation Area, you’ll see this fascinating ecosystem in totality. Mudskippers and 30 types of crab crawl along the water’s edge; egrets and snipes hide among the greenery. At the Mangrove Swamp Exhibition Center, you’ll gain an understanding of this special ecology.

On the opposite bank is the Wazihwei Nature Reserve, an estuarine lagoon also fringed with mangroves and abandoned fishing boats. At low tide, a carpet of fiddler crabs covers the ground.

Tamsui’s history reads like a logbook of attempted colonial land-grabs; nowhere is this more apparent than at Fort San Domingo. A wood fort was first built on this site by the Spanish in 1629, then razed before its capture by the Dutch, who built a red-brick structure in its place. The British leased the fort from 1867, adding a Chinese-inspired consular residence. Today, there’s also a free-to-enter museum detailing Tamsui’s complex history.

Just down the road is the Tamsui Customs Officers’ Residence, built after defeat in the Second Opium War forced the Qing Dynasty to open trade in Tamsui. Its lovely white arches and low, bungalow-style layout has earned it the nickname “The Little White House”; Taiwanese couples flock here to shoot photos in its landscaped garden. There’s an even more romantic outlook from the Fisherman’s Wharf, when the sun sinks into the sea and its dying rays bathe the white spire of the Lover’s Bridge in golden light.