June 23, 2017

Droning Boy: Yehliu Geopark

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I've been wanting to take my drone to Yehliu Geopark (野柳地質公園) for a few months now, but haven't had much success.  I first tried in early March, when I dragged my ass (and Hello Kitty's, too) out of bed early in the morning for this.  But I had a change of heart after we got into a taxi, as the sky was gray and wouldn't produce good-looking footage.  So I asked the taxi driver to take us to Yongkang Street (永康街) and we ended up having soup dumplings (湯包) for breakfast at Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐) instead...

When I came back to Taipei last month, I woke up early one morning to find blue skies.  So I hopped onto a bus and headed to my destination.  Unfortunately, it started to rain while I was halfway there, and all I could do was to stand in front of the park's sign and snap a picture...

I set my alarm to wake myself up, but not as early as I should have.  After putzing around for a little at the Parental Units', I grabbed a taxi to get myself to the bus stop at Taipei Main Station, and once again hopped on to the bus headed for Yehliu.  Thankfully, the skies remained blue today.

I chose not to enter the park today, and just launched my DJI Mavic Pro from the waterfront right outside the park's exit.  The sun was beating down on us, and I figured most of the female tourists - from Mainland China and Korea - were carrying umbrellas.  This made for some interesting footage...


The park's main attraction, of course, was the iconic Queen's Head (女王頭).  As usual there was a long line of tourists waiting to snap a picture at the designated spot, while some people also try to snap selfies with it from the other side.  These days they've laid a ring of rocks around the area to tell people not to step in and get too close, but as you can see from the video above, there are still clueless people who think they can do whatever they want...

I made sure I covered different areas of the park to show the variety of rock formations - from the ubiquitous mushroom rocks (蕈狀岩) and ginger rocks (薑石), to candle rocks (燭台石), Fairie's shoes (仙女鞋), and bean curd rocks (豆腐岩).  For a small geopark, there was certainly an interesting and diverse range of formations.

I stuck around for an hour and a half under the blazing sun, getting myself burnt to a crisp - Hello Kitty called me a lobster when she saw me later - and my spare iPhone so hot that it overheated and had to be cooled down with a wet towel before it would operate...

I'm glad I finally made it here and got some footage.  I think maybe I'll go back next time very early in the morning - possibly before the park opens so that there aren't any tourists inside.

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