A visit to Taiwan’s Buddhist sacred mountain
UPDATE: October 2011
The Taiwan Shuttle Bus service from Hsinchu High Speed Rail Station to Lion’s Head Mountain (and the useful minibus service connecting Quanhua Temple with the Visitor Center at the end of the walk is once again running, after being cancelled for quite a bit of this year. It’s easier and quicker than the alternative (and for a while the only regular) bus route from Zhunan station described in the book, with the added advantage of the bus to zip walkers from the visitor center at the end of the walk (point 10) back to the beginning, for bus riders and driver alike.
Buses start at Jhubei Railway Station every half-hour on the hour and half-hour from 8 am (every hour on the hour on weekdays), and pass Hsinchu High Speed Railway station about 20 minutes later. Details and a schedule are up on the Taiwan Shuttle Bus site at http://www.taiwantrip.com.tw//Besttour/ but (for the moment at least) be sure to check the Chinese version of the site for the schedule (the English language version has the original, now outdated schedule from 2010!)
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- The temples from the car park at point 1
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- A Thread of Sky, near Suilian Cave (point 9)
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- The ‘Sticky Rice’ Bridge at point 9
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- Zihyang Gate
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- Quanhua Temple and the Chaosheng Tower
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- Quanhua Temple
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- Quanhua Temple
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- Morality Gate
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- Shishan Rock Face
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- LIngsia Temple
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- Cising Sacred Tree
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- The sticky rice bridge near Shuilien Cave
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- A Thread of Sky, near Shuilien Cave
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- Shuilien Cave
Taipei ESCAPES 
Taiwan Shuttle Bus worked perfectly for me in 2012. And on the way back some locals “made me” leaving the bus with them at Beipu, so they could show me the village and some local food delicaties. Wow!
I read through the book Taipei Escapes 1 in no time (-> 5 stars from me for it at Goodreads), but I’m a bit surprised you rate this Walk 40 as moderately easy. The trail itself offers no difficulties, but is kind of steep sometimes.
I wonder how the trails that are rated moderately strenous are going to be.
Your books gave me so many ideas what to do – seven nights will not be enough!
Good luck – hope you get loads more memorable experiences in Taiwan on this visit! Good point about the ‘moderately easy’ tag though – it’s rather subjective. I gave it that mainly because the trails are wide and simple, but you’re right – it’s still
a bit steep in places!
I don’t think that the Nanzhuang Line bus goes all the way to the car park anymore. I say this because the bus driver knew that I wanted to go to 勸化堂 (Quanhua Tang), but told me that the closest stop is well below it. Also, I have a copy of this line’s bus schedule and there is no stop called 勸化堂站. Indeed, the stop where I was told to get off is called 獅頭山, which is the name of the mountain area of this hike. After getting off at this bus stop, you just cross the street to go through the arch and up the wide stone steps. About ten minutes later, the steps will wrap around sharply to the right, but instead, go straight, cross a small road and continue up more stone steps. This will lead to Futian Temple like the book says, except it is the other side of the temple. It’s actually a little cooler because I had to go through this little dug-out “cave” area that they have near the temple that I wouldn’t have seen had I come from the direction of the car park. Anyway, once there, it’s fairly easy to pick up the steps from the book.
Thanks for this info! Yeah, there’s actually still a bus to Quanhua Temple, but in true Taiwanese fashion, they’ve made getting there more complicated! There’s now a separate Taiwan Tourist Shuttle Bus service called the ‘Lion’s Head Mountain Nanzhuang’ route which connects with most buses arriving from HsInchu and stops at the temple. Your walking route sounds like a good alternative though – thanks!