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(寶山, pinyin: bǎoshān)
The first character of the Chinese name means "treasure", and the second one means "mountain". So the "treasure mountain". Baoshan township is located in Hsinchu County. The artificial human-made lake of Baoshan is around 30 min ride from Hsinchu City's downtown. The area around the lake itself is not urbanized. Apart of Baoshan Reservoir, the township also consists of urban and semi-urban part, including big, fancy houses. Fair enough to mention, that the township of Baoshan itself is ostensibly a suburb of Hsinchu City. In this article I will put some brief overall introduction to Baoshan, but will mainly focus on the lake area this time.
Information about the cruise
Below is the track of my bike trip to Baoshan Reservoir area from Hsinchu City's Downtown:
Information about the cruise
Below is the track of my bike trip to Baoshan Reservoir area from Hsinchu City's Downtown:
Show Bike Trips: Hsinchu - Baoshan on a bigger map
Baoshan is a township in the Western part of Hsinchu County, Taiwn. It is a suburb-neighbour to Hsinchu City to the North and West. It is also bounded by Zhudong City (to the East), Beipu and Emei Towns (to the South) and Miaoli County (to the West). Baoshan, populated predominantly by people of Hakka ethnicity, is part of the Greater Daai Area (together with Beipu and Emei) which is said to be the largest area of Hakka settlers in northern Taiwan. Novadays, however, non-Hakka people started to also settle in Baoshan due to its proximity to Hsinchu City. Quite a few wealthy people moved in recent years from Hsinchu City to Baoshan to live in big and expensive houses. Also, the Hsinchu Science Park (Tiwan's Silicon Valey) grows its significant part into the Baoshan. The township is hilly, semi-mountinous area. Besides the urban part, the rest of it, is predominantly agricultural, particularly plentiful in hillside orchards of tangerines and lychee nuts. It is also where national Freeways No. 1 and 3 connects to each other by a large interchange called Hsinchu System.
Baoshan Reservoirs 寶山水庫
The goal of my today's cruise was not the urban part of Baoshan however. The township is also the location of Baoshan Reservoirs 寶山水庫 (pinyn: bao3shan1shui3ku4) I and II supplying drinking water to Hsinchu City as well as cooling water to the Science Park's foundries.
The second Reservoir was created more recently and it seems that it's missing on Google maps. Well, I learnt about this only when I was already in the field. To my suprise, my GPS locator with Google maps was showing my position away from the Reservoir, while I saw the water next to the road. It was the second, more recently created Reservoir that I was looking at.
Baoshan Reservoir II
So there are two of them! The photo on the right was taken by me at the Dam of the Baoshan Reservoir II. It is a photo of an informational sign by the Dam, and the Dam itself behind it.
The information from the sign (the English part) is as below:
The Baoshan II Reservoir is a mono goal reservoir for civil and industrial water supply. The reservoir is located in Baoshan Township, Hsinchu County. The Baoshan II Resevoir is an off-stream reservoir, thus it requires diversion to channel water from Shangping River, the tributary of Toucian River, during wet season. The catchment area of reservoir are 2.88 square kilimeters, the capacity are 32 million cubic meters.
Ponizej wiecej ujec na zbiorniki w Baoshan:
Baoshan's Primary School
By the lake in Baoshan there's a school - a primary school (新竹縣寶山國小). Taking into a consideration that this very part of Baoshan is not highly populated, I would rather expect something modest from a school. What I saw, however, was nothing like a school building that one could be expecting. In fact, at the first glance, I was convinced it is some SPA-like mountain resort, restaurant maybe. Then I saw the sign on the wall :) Oficially there are aproximately 14-16 thousands people living on 65 km² of Baoshan Township's area. This number makes it very reasonable to have even few schools here. Extraordinary part is the architectural design of the school and its landscape. The location of the school is marked on the map above, and on the right there's small footage from my trip.
And it's suprising not only on the outside. Inside it hosts a swimming pool! While it can be generally said that Baoshan is a Countryside area, who would like to go to school in a city if you can spend your young years in a school like the one in Baoshan, playing in the pool each day :)
Baoshan Reservoirs 寶山水庫
The goal of my today's cruise was not the urban part of Baoshan however. The township is also the location of Baoshan Reservoirs 寶山水庫 (pinyn: bao3shan1shui3ku4) I and II supplying drinking water to Hsinchu City as well as cooling water to the Science Park's foundries.
The second Reservoir was created more recently and it seems that it's missing on Google maps. Well, I learnt about this only when I was already in the field. To my suprise, my GPS locator with Google maps was showing my position away from the Reservoir, while I saw the water next to the road. It was the second, more recently created Reservoir that I was looking at.
Baoshan Reservoir IISo there are two of them! The photo on the right was taken by me at the Dam of the Baoshan Reservoir II. It is a photo of an informational sign by the Dam, and the Dam itself behind it.
The information from the sign (the English part) is as below:
The Baoshan II Reservoir is a mono goal reservoir for civil and industrial water supply. The reservoir is located in Baoshan Township, Hsinchu County. The Baoshan II Resevoir is an off-stream reservoir, thus it requires diversion to channel water from Shangping River, the tributary of Toucian River, during wet season. The catchment area of reservoir are 2.88 square kilimeters, the capacity are 32 million cubic meters.
Ponizej wiecej ujec na zbiorniki w Baoshan:
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| Panorama of the Baoshan II Reservoir |
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| Zoom on the informational sign |
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| Stop on the way to the Dam |
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| Sightseeing terrace by the Baoshan I Reservoir |
By the lake in Baoshan there's a school - a primary school (新竹縣寶山國小). Taking into a consideration that this very part of Baoshan is not highly populated, I would rather expect something modest from a school. What I saw, however, was nothing like a school building that one could be expecting. In fact, at the first glance, I was convinced it is some SPA-like mountain resort, restaurant maybe. Then I saw the sign on the wall :) Oficially there are aproximately 14-16 thousands people living on 65 km² of Baoshan Township's area. This number makes it very reasonable to have even few schools here. Extraordinary part is the architectural design of the school and its landscape. The location of the school is marked on the map above, and on the right there's small footage from my trip.
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| Source: www.bses.hcc.edu.tw/ |
And as the last flavor, a montage of some of my photos:
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| Taiwan, Hsinchu-Baoshan, 2010-09-06 |
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