During the Tainan Wild sugarcane flower season at the end of September and the beginning of October, the snowy white embankment of the Dainai Bridge is often mistaken for manzanita, which is actually sweet root grass! The large riverbed gives rise to spectacular scenery, and in this season, with a slight cool breeze in the evening, it’s a good choice for trekking in Tainan~!

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Dainai Bridge Embankment

I remember when I was a student traveling between the north and the south, no matter by train or by tour bus, there was always a season of snowy white when I passed above the riverbed, and I thought it was a manzanita flower, which I misunderstood for more than ten years, but later I realized that it was a sweet root grass.

Sweetroot Grass blooms earlier, has white flowers, and usually grows next to riverbeds, while Manzanita usually lives in small hillside areas and has brown flowers.

In the fall, the embankment becomes a recreational trail that attracts a lot of people who love to take photos and be photographed. Almost everyone parks their cars near the Ouchi Bridge, so there are more people there, and sometimes you have to walk around the people taking photos by using the ramp.

It’s a lot more open when it’s far away from the Dainai Bridge, and even if it’s crowded, there’s still a lot of places to park – it’s not far from the interchange, so you can get there quickly. The direction of the afternoon sun is on the right side of the picture, and the small-leafed olive trees on the side of the road are in the shade, so you can sit on the island and enjoy the view.

You can watch the sunset from a tree, but you can’t see the sweet root grass.

Continuing to the back (away from the Ouchi Bridge) there were fewer and fewer people, and the embankment was covered with parasitic plants on the concrete, so I don’t know if it was because fewer people were stepping on it.

Another reason why I feel relaxed here is that apart from the beautiful scenery, there are also many wild birds ～ although they are all very common, such as the White-headed Cockatoo and the Spotted Wench, the constant chirping of the birds gives you a sense of the natural atmosphere! They were seen walking among the white flowers, and you can see several of them in the photo below.

There is a big slope at the bend of the river where you can walk down to the riverbed, this was the furthest I went that day, the views were pretty much the same, and I wanted to save some time to go up to the Ouchi Bridge to check it out.

When you come under the bridge pier, you can use the bridge to compose a picture with the sea of flowers.

At sunset, I went to the Dainai Bridge. The sunset was on the left side of the picture, and although it didn’t overlap with the sea of flowers, I was able to look down at the sea of sweet root grass flowers from a top-down perspective! It was quite spectacular. I spent more than 2 hours walking around and taking pictures of the small area.