Yeliu Park

Yeliu (literally meaning Wild Willow) is a long and narrow marine foreland located in the northern part of Taiwan Island. In this piece of land, there lies a mystical sculpture garden, in which there are various strange stone sculptures standing on the sea shore. 

Being 1,600 meters long, Yeliu is a piece of rock foreland. Under the effect of forceful wave and weathering of rock, Yeliu has formed the peculiar abrasion geomorphy. The formation of these strange sculptures can be traced back to more than twenty million years ago. During that time, the Taiwan Island was still below the sea level. The sand which had been washed away from Chinese mainland was deposited here and gradually formed the sandrock bedding. A saying goes that orogenetic movements which occurred about six million years ago had raised the seabed. As a result, the Taiwan Island came out of the sea surface. The marvelous landscapes we see today are due to the continuous erosion from the sea water. 

The strange stones are named according to their different shapes like mushroom, ginger and bean curd. In Yeliu, the mushroom stones are the most peculiar ones. The height of the stones ranges from one to four meters. They are thin at the bottom and thick on the upper side; and the short and thick stone pillar holds a heavy 'head'. Among these mushroom stones, the most well-known one is the Queen's Head. It is very thin in its neck part while the top of the stone is very much like a noblewoman with her chignon rolled up high. The whole stone just looks like the head of a western Queen. 

The 'heads' of mushroom stones are made up of seashells and the remains of other ancient marine organism. The calcareous contained in the crust gathered into lump. During the weathering process, the comparatively soft sandstone was worn away thus core part which had been wrapped in the rock gradually revealed, to form the strange stone sculpture. With the abration from the sea and lifting of the earth's crust, the neck of the mushroom stones will continue to be worn away and become thinner and thinner. Till one day, they cannot bear the weight of their 'heads' and eventually collapse. 

The different shape of the core part of the stones comes to form the different modeling of stone sculptures. The candlestick stones are another kind of wonder stones in Yeliu. Their shapes are like candlestick, perfectly round at the root and comparatively thin at the upward side. The top is concave with the 'candlelight' burning in the middle, perfectly like a candlestick. Some other stones cling to the ground in torsional deformation, on which there are also some interlaced cracks. In this way these stones resemble vividly the old ginger, thus they are named 'ginger stones'.

There are still many other strange rocks on the sea shore near Yeliu: you can see some rocks have a round hole on their smooth surface, usually the mouth is small while the inside is big. The hole usually contains some round stones and is filled with seawater. The cause of formation is that the seawater occasionally pushed the stone blocks into the original concave parts of the rock. The springing up seawater makes the stone blocks whirling and polishes the brink of the holes. Under this effect, the hole has become larger and larger and finally turns out to be deep-well like stone holes.       

Here we can also find the trace of some primitive creatures. The fossils of beautiful sea urchins, starfishes and those of the reptiles are all worth searching. The remains of creatures not only have offered interesting decoration to the strange rocks of Yeliu, but also tell us the sight during the ancient times which was full of vigor.

 Entrance Fee: TWD 50 per person
 Opening Hours: 
08:00 - 18:00 (May to Oct.)
08:00 - 17:30 (Nov. to Apr.)
 Transportation:
A. Take the express bus of Kuo-Kuang Co. at its West Station A of Taipei city and get off at Yehliu stop. 
B. Take the express bus at Keelung station and get off at Yehliu stop.
C. Take the express bus at Tamshui station and get off at Yehliu stop.