The Suhua Highway is Taiwan’s best-known cliffside coastal highway, running down the east coast between Yilan and Hualien, near Taroko Gorge, and famed equally for its perilous terrain and its scenery. The crash of Pacific waves against rock rose from right below our feet. At the base of the sheer cliff, the water was a deep, brilliant blue. On this day, my son and I set out from Heren Station and walked the old Suhua Highway north through Heping to Hanben Station — a route of under 20 km that links dramatic sea cliffs with remote train stations and covers the highway’s finest stretch in a single day.
The Suhua Highway: An Old Road Passing into History
The Suhua Highway is the section of Provincial Highway 9 between Su’ao in Yilan and Hualien, its classic 70-80 km stretch squeezed between mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. Since 2020, a new tunnel highway (Highway 9), built under the government’s Suhua Highway Improvement Project, has replaced the old coastal road (Provincial Highway 9D). Traffic moved to the new road, and the old Suhua fell quiet.
In January 2026, Taiwan’s Executive Yuan formally announced the decommissioning of about 4.9 km of the old road south of Heren. It had collapsed repeatedly after the 2024 Hualien earthquake, proved too difficult to repair, and was finally consigned to history. In plain words: the old Suhua Highway south of Heren will become a relic, slowly returning to nature. That is the backdrop to this walk — the walkable portion of the old road is only going to get shorter.
Why Walk the Heren-to-Hanben Section?
What drew me here was not the highway itself but the remote stations of the North-Link Line. Between Su’ao and Hualien there are five stations so remote that Taiwanese railfans call them “secret stations”, and three of them — Heren, Heping, and Hanben — sit wedged between the mountains and the sea. Local trains are too infrequent to visit them one by one, so we decided to link them on foot and walk the highway’s best section in the process. That made for an exceptionally rewarding day trip.
If you only walk one section of the Suhua Highway in a day, I would suggest the route we took: start at Heren and walk through Heping to Hanben (or the reverse). Three reasons:
- The most dramatic cliff scenery: the coastal cliffs between Heren and Heping, including the Elephant Trunk Tunnel once printed on Taiwan’s old NT$1 banknote.
- Resupply at the midpoint: Heping sits halfway along the route, and the TCC DAKA complex there has a convenience store and a Starbucks — food, water, and air-conditioning.
- Under 20 km, with a train station at each end. Time the trains right, and a day trip from Taipei is not difficult.
Difficulty and Safety
The Suhua Highway has none of the sustained climbs of a high-mountain trail, but it has rolling gradients, long tunnels, full sun exposure, and long gaps between supply points. At a typical walking pace of 3-5 km per hour, 20 km takes about 4-6 hours of actual walking time; with photos, breaks, and lunch, 6-8 hours is more realistic.
The biggest threats to walkers here used to be traffic, poor visibility in tunnels, rockfall, and roadworks. Since the new highway opened, most vehicles have been diverted away, and the old road (Highway 9D) is quiet and comfortable to walk. Extra caution is needed where Highways 9 and 9D share the same roadway — heavy trucks are frequent there. And the rockfall risk on these fractured cliffs never fully goes away: stay off the road after earthquakes or heavy rain.
Train Times: The Make-or-Break Detail
Heren, Heping, and Hanben are served only by local trains, and there are very few: roughly one every 1-2 hours at peak times, with gaps of 3-4 hours off-peak. Check the timetable before you go — the Taiwan Railway (TR) website has an English version.
We stayed in Luodong the night before. Three local trains head this way between 6 and 8 a.m.; we took the 7:48 and reached Heren at 9:15 (July 2026 timetable). At an ordinary pace you reach Hanben between 2 and 3 p.m.; even arriving at 4 or 5, there are still trains back. Planned well, this works as a day trip from Taipei.
Heren: Built for the Cement Industry, Without a Station Building
Almost nobody gets on or off at Heren. There is no station building at all — just a card reader in the underpass. Oddly enough, while its passenger numbers sit near zero, its freight volume was once the highest of any station in Taiwan, thanks to the cement plant next door.
Most Taiwanese have never heard of the name “Kanakan” — Heren’s old Truku name, meaning “rugged road” — yet it became the title of a pop song (Bobby Chen, 1994).
Out of the station, turn right and head north, and you soon cross Kanan Bridge: the cement plant and its dust lie toward the mountains, the North-Link Line bridge toward the sea. The traffic light after the bridge is the key junction — straight ahead is the new highway (Highway 9); turn right onto the old Suhua Highway (Highway 9D), and the cliffs lie ahead.
The Cliff Highlights: Heren Tunnel to Heping Tunnel
Not far past the turn comes Heren Tunnel, parts of which are semi-open “gallery tunnels” — the open side faces the sea cliffs, and in places you can step out of the tunnel and stand at the cliff edge, watching waves break against the rock face. Standing up there with the surf booming below, I felt as if I were standing in a parallel version of Taiwan.
Between Heren Tunnel and Heping Tunnel the road runs right along the sea — this is the classic Suhua cliff coastline, the Pacific an unbelievable shade of blue at the bottom of a near-vertical drop. There is hardly any traffic left on the old road, but plenty of motorcyclists come here for exactly that reason; as they passed us, one after another stretched out an arm and gave us a thumbs-up.
The Elephant Trunk Tunnel printed on the 1961 NT$1 banknote stands on the Guguzi Cliff near Heping, just outside today’s Heping Tunnel. A landmark once familiar from banknotes across Taiwan can now be reached only by technical climbing: out through a cross passage inside the tunnel, then a scramble and rope descent down the cliff — strictly for climbers with professional preparation and proper equipment.
Heping: The Resupply Stop at the Halfway Point
Out of Heping Tunnel you enter Hezhong, a settlement of just a few households that the new highway bypasses entirely — quiet and pleasant to walk through. After that comes the stretch where Highways 9 and 9D merge, with heavy trucks roaring past: stay alert here.
About two hours after leaving Heren, we reached Heping Station. If Heren exists for one cement company, Heping belongs to TCC, the Taiwan Cement Corporation: passenger numbers as low as those of any remote station, but a huge yard with multiple tracks laid for the cement industry — worth a look for railway enthusiasts.
For a walker, though, the most useful stop is the TCC DAKA complex beside the station. It works like a highway rest area, with a 7-Eleven and a Starbucks. We arrived around noon, cooled off over coffee and lunch at the Starbucks, restocked at the 7-Eleven, and set off again.
Heping to Hanben: The Old Road’s Inland Detour
The new highway does not pass Hanben, so you follow the old road — and as the map shows, it loops inland for a stretch. Driving, the difference is a few kilometers; on foot, it adds 1-2 hours.
We skipped the Highway 9D route through Heping town (which has a 7-Eleven and a couple of small guesthouses — an option if you want to overnight) and instead took an alternative path through the seaside factory zone: industrial railways and plant landscapes at close range — an unusual industrial perspective that few accounts of the route mention.
Soon after, we crossed Dazhuoshui Bridge. The river below — the Dazhuoshui, today called the Heping River — rises near Nanhu Mountain and marks the boundary between Hualien and Yilan counties. Across the bridge, we were in Yilan.
Hanben: The Station Named “Halfway”
Hanben got its name in the Japanese era: it sits at the halfway point of the old coastal road, and the Japanese word for that midpoint, hanbun (“half”), was later transliterated into the Chinese name Hanben. There are only a handful of houses here and almost no conventional attractions: just the station, Hanben Beach behind it, and the beach’s only building, Hanben Ocean Station — a Coast Guard facility converted into a small exhibition space, open to visitors.
We reached Hanben Beach a little after 2 p.m. With two hours until the train home, we sat in the air-conditioned Hanben Ocean Station, laptops out, back to our screens — wandering the few steps down to the beach whenever we got bored. Having nowhere in particular to go is precisely the point of coming here. A little after four, we ambled back to Hanben Station and caught the train home. In one day, my son and I had visited three remote stations — and walked the Suhua Highway.
Before You Go
- Plan the route in Google Maps cycling mode: walking or driving mode may route you into new highway tunnels that are unsafe or prohibited for pedestrians; cycling mode follows the old Suhua Highway (Highway 9D).
- Sun protection and water: the route is exposed nearly the whole way and the asphalt gets hot in summer — hat, sunscreen, and plenty of water are non-negotiable.
- Train times make or break the trip: all three stations see only a few local trains a day, so check both your outbound and return trains in advance.
- For the bluest ocean, come in the morning: the sea lies to the east, and the morning light hits it just right.
Afterword: Closer Than Ever, Further Away Than Ever
The late-afternoon local train took us to Luodong, we changed for Taipei, and by 7 p.m., my son and I were celebrating over dinner at a Taipei restaurant. The difficulty of a trip is sometimes just a limit you set for yourself: plan it properly, and “walking the Suhua Highway” — impressive as it sounds — is an ordinary one-day outing.
Since the new highway opened, Taipei to Hualien keeps getting faster. People pass through one new tunnel after another and never see the sea. Modern infrastructure has brought the Suhua Highway closer than ever, yet Taiwanese people keep drifting further from the Suhua of their imagination. Before the old road south of Heren returns to nature, walk it — it is a way of getting this highway back.
