Gold Ecological Park (黃金博物園區)

After visiting JiuFen Old Street (九份老街), we took a bus to Gold Ecological Park (黃金博物園區). In the past, this place was a gold mine, hence the town's name 金瓜石 (golden rock). But now, it has become a tourist attraction. There's quite a bit of things to see and do here. We spent about two hours here walking through the preserved buildings, visiting the museum and experiencing an old gold mine tunnel and gold panning. While most of them are free of charge, the others only require very minimal entrance fee.

First, we waited around to join the next guided tour for the Four Joined Japanese-Style Residences (四連棟).

Kitchen


Washing area

Toilet

Play area

Dining table

Bedroom

After the tour, we wandered further into the park and found ourselves at the Crown Prince Chalet (太子賓館).

Outside the house

A pond outside the house


We follow the old mine track to another attraction in the park.

Next, we went for the guided experiential walk inside the Benshan Fifth Tunnel (本山五坑坑道).

Along the tunnel, there are displays of life-size figures of workers to depict the mining work.

Then, we visited the Museum of Gold that bring us through the history of gold mining. There are some write-ups about mining in ancient times and during the Japanese occupation. There are also little models to illustrate the process of mining, exhibition of mining tools, some multimedia and a really big block of gold at the end of the museum.

Mining equipment

An moving image of a mordern scientist is projected into this miniature model of an olden days laboratory.

A really big block of gold that every visitor wants to touch.

Our last stop was at the gold panning station. We exchanged our ticket stubs for a plate of sand. Yes, sand!

My plate of sand

All the participants sat along a water trough and paying attention to the instruction.

This was what is left in my plate... a really tiny speck of gold dust at the right top side of the remaining sand. The instructor helped each of us to pack this into a small glass bottle to bring home.

After leaving the Gold Ecological Park, we stood at the bus stop and wondered if we should visit the other nearby tourist sites. Then, the bus came and we decided to just hop on it. When we drop off at the Golden Waterfall (黃金瀑布), none of us was impressed with the waterfall.

The Golden Waterfall 黃金瀑布

There is another attraction called the Yinyang Sea (陰陽海), which is a relatively short distance from the waterfall to the coastline. But upon seeing such a waterfall, we decided to give that a miss and head back to Ruifang train station.