Route John, Andrea & Adrian Cycle All Around Taiwan  

This map commemorates the circumnavigation of Taiwan on bicycles by three upstanding examples of homo sapiens: John Aouad, Adrian Brown, and Andrea Crowe.  Beginning on the 9th of February 2010 from their home base, Tainan, they headed south down to the southernmost point of the island and then up the east coast, eventually touching the northernmost points.  From there they headed south again, back towards Tainan.  Unfortunately, a succession of three cold fronts bringing wind and rain to all parts of Taiwan had made the journey around the northern portion of the island rather miserable rather than pleasurable and despite their determined wish to complete the journey they had to concede defeat and pause at Hsinchu in the north-west.  It would be almost a month before they were able to return to their point of pause in order to resume the travail from where they had left off.  The last stretch from Hsinchu to Tainan was completed in one long marathon ride of almost 300km, an overnight ride ending on the 21st of March.

As you can see from the route on this electronic map, the intrepid trio had cause to be proud of what they had accomplished. A more elaborate description of the journey including more photos can be found on Adrian's blog at this address:

http://sesquipedaustralian.blogspot.com/

Here are links to individual days of travel:

• Prologue
• Day 1: Tainan to Chaojhou
  
• Day 2: Chaojhou to Kenting
  
• Day 3: Kenting to Dawu
  
• Day 4: Dawu to Taidong
  
• Day 5: Taidong to Guangfu
  
• Day 6: Guangfu to Nan-ao
  
• Day 7: Nan-ao to Fulong
  
• Day 8: Fulong to Keelung
  
• Day 9: Keelung to Hsinchu
  
• An undesirable logistical outcome
• Day 10-11: Hsinchu to Tainan
  
• Epilogue
  

John has also written about the journey on his blog and included some edited video at this address:  http://juanitospace.blogspot.com/

Andrea doesn't blog; she's too busy training for her next half-marathon.

I have also written a page of advice for anyone attempting something similar in Taiwan:  cycling around Taiwan advice.