Day 24

Mialiao to Lugang.

Dave has taken it upon himself to fly the flag as he runs the first six kilometres with Neil today. The wind is still strong, though less strong thankfully than yesterday, and I hope he doesn’t fly away on a gust, especially after he managed to find lattes in desolated Mialiao and brought them to Neil and I this morning. We were sorry to leave our Motel, so homely and wholesome with parking and a privet bush outside.

In contrast to the east coast, for days we’ve passed immense open plains where just crop fields and large pools of water stretch out as far as the distant hills. The open spaces mean the wind is unobstructed and it’s chilly. Without noticing, we have crossed the Tropic of Cancer again, and I see how it acts as an invisible barrier to heat and good weather passing further north than that point.

Neil will, at today’s 34th kilometre point, reach the 1000th kilometre of his expedition. That is some achievement. Even, I think, by his standards. The boys run the first 12.5 kilometres together. I know Neil has enjoyed running with someone again, admiring with his compatriot (Dave’s English despite his Australian accent) the view where the leafless trees near the Jioushei River stretch below fog like an autumn day in England. Fair England! The wind today is “manageable” and at least better than yesterday’s relentless billowing from the north. It swirls around from side to side and towards our runner. Never behind him though. Never with him. Neil swears that never once in his entire athletic life has the wind been with him.

Dave leaves us that afternoon. His help has been more than we could have asked for and I believe neither Neil nor myself even begrudged the fact that he was boarding a flight to Thailand that night. At 20.02, I look at the time and read it as ‘twenty point two’. I wonder if I’ll ever again be able to get on my bike or drive a car without writing down the number on the millimeter before moving off.

At around 9pm on April 24th, standing in the dark by a handsome Taiwanese house just outside of Lugang on Route 17, far off dogs barked and bats flitted across the streetlights as the Super Supao came out as a toast to Neil’s thousandth kilometre. The moment was enjoyed, a second to appreciate how far he had come before setting forth again, so many more kilometres, he noted, still to be traveled.

Almost as a celebrationary treat, Neil finishes his marathon and we head into Lugang to meet Colin. Otherwise known, famed one might say, as Westie. We were a little surprised to be entertaining so soon after Dave’s departure. But we were mistaken, for it was we who were entertained. Laden with sushi and local specialty meat dumplings, Westie had already found us a place to stay and we were soon in the hotel room in stitches over his Scottish humour and delightfully well-told stories (some of which verge on the ridiculous- did you ever meet someone who went to hospital because he broke his arm, and was told by the doctors that his arm wasn’t broken at all, but his leg?). We learned that he’s been following Neil’s progress on the website as avidly as an Englishman watches Neighbours, and as a reward for his support (despite the fact he thought me a gay man) he is now privy to the highly classified top-secret information of what happened on Day Eleven. Via Westie’s mobile phone, Neil and I became audience to a pre-recording of his skills on the Taiwanese harp. And later, despite recent surgery to the Anterior Cruciate Ligament and the braces on his leg, demonstrated the countless highlights of his football career with the energy and physical freedom of movement of David Beckham against Greece… or a Scottish footballer in another competition. I wouldn’t wonder that he won’t attempt the Hsinchu marathon anyway.