Caoling Historical Trail to Daxi Guide / October 12, 2021 by Josiah Edbrooke

Fulong to Daxi in a Day

I started out the hike in Fulong beach. There is a bus that takes you to the trail head of the Caoling Trail but I decided it would be more fun to walk down the countryside lanes in order to get there. There are plenty of signposts to the main trail head. I would recommend that you take the bus to save the amount of walking you’ll most likely do the entire day.

The path winds it’s way past a couple of nice rice paddies that make for a nice photo location. Follow the road and it eventually transitions to forest path and forks left once the trail enters the forest. It’s handily signposted and hard to miss so that shouldn’t be a problem.

The Caoling Trail is pretty simple to follow, the only thing I would say it to watch out for the spiders in the forest as a lot of them have made their webs right across the path at a head height. The trail leads you to rest stop pagoda, watch out though as it is full of giant spiders!

Once you are past this area fairly quickly you’ll arrive at several stone tablets which were an interesting stopping point. This part of the trip is very easy to follow and leads to the coast and and Yilan, which is the best part of the hike I would say. This first part of the hike didn’t take as long as I thought it would.

The second part of the hike from Dali to Daxi had much more interesting views and a payoff for the hike. When I hiked the second part of the trail it was very windy and most of the trail was covered in cloud. It did make for some atmospheric photos though. For the most part this trail is easy to follow, it’s signposted and the path is pretty clear.

One of the most difficult aspects is the constant up and down in elevation from Dali to Daxi. It would be a very good idea to take walking poles to save your knees from the impact of the endless stairs. I hiked it during the week so there wasn’t too much of a hiking crowd which was nice. A mid way through the hike there is a parking lot in Tauyuan valley which had a few more hikers. It offers fantastic views of Turtle island and the Yilan coastline.

It is by far the best part of the hike, and has the most worthwhile views and elements. I decided to extend the hike and go all the way to Daxi. I would suggest you skip this part as it’s pretty non eventful and mostly just covered in forest and more endless stairs. It has a lot of endless up and downs and can drag on quite a bit.

One thing I would say is however much water you think you need take double that amount. I took three bottles and even that wasn’t enough. I had a bit of dehydration which wasn’t that fun, I tried eating an oat biscuit which was not a good idea! Anyways the path eventually leads to Daxi and I took the train back to Taipei.

The hike overall was fun hike for intermediate adventurers, the first part of the hike in Fulong has a gentle incline and isn’t too hard to complete. The best part of the hike is by far the area of the Yilan coastline area, it offers the best views of Turtle island by far. At a causal pace you should be able to finish this full loop in a day without too many problems. I’ll include the video guide in this article as well if you want an even more detailed route to follow. Happy hiking!