The best trips out of town are those that are unplanned and spontaneous. Just like today, Patrick simply announced he wanted us to take a drive to the Pililia Wind Farm and we were all like, "Where is that?" haha It turned out that he has been meaning to see these huge windmills in Pililia, Rizal (pretty much like those in Bangui, Ilocos Norte which he has already seen) and since he's test driving the 2016 Honda Jazz as well, it would be a killing-two-birds-with-one-stone type of deal.Since I didn't know much about these windmills in Tanay, Rizal, I did a preliminary search about them in Google and this is what I found from the Wikipedia article:
- Developer: Alternergy Philippine Holdings Corporation
- Coverage: 4,515 hectares
- Location: Bgy. Halayhayin, Piliia, Rizal
- Project: 27 wind turbine generators, grouped into three clusters
- Capacity: 67.5 megawatts (MW)
Patrick is sort of familiar with the roads in Tanay since that is where he mostly test drives the cars he's reviewing because of the curves and turns. So we thought we'd wing it when we got there. Here is the path that we took. Full disclosure, we never got to the end of the road of the actual Pililia Wind Farm. Remember that we were driving a Honda Jazz and the roads weren't paved all the way and we just didn't want to push it since it wasn't our car ;) Take a 4x4 next time, that's my suggestion! :) I'll start from the Sta. Lucia East Grand Mall in Marikina. It is a well-known landmark so the directions shouldn't be too hard to follow from there. I'm sorry I can't provide details on public transportation for now.
- It takes almost 50kms from Sta. Lucia East Grand Mall to the Sampaloc Inn in Tanay, Rizal which is the most important landmark on the way to the Pililia Wind Farm. It will take about an hour to an hour and a half traversing the Marilaque Highway. You'll be passing the Pranjetto Hills Resort and Conference center (on the right) and signs to the Tanay Adventure Camp after that, until you reach the Tanay-Sampaloc junction. We made a mistake and made a right to follow the Tanay-Sampaloc road from there, so don't do as we did! :) We knew we made a mistake when we saw the windmills to our left on this road. We just went back to the junction, got on the Marilaque Highway and headed straight (we asked the locals for help this time around).
- The Sampaloc Inn is about 1 km from the Tanay-Sampaloc Road intersection, located on the left side. At this point, be on the lookout for a waiting shed on the right, a few meters after the Sampaloc Inn. You will turn right here on this street. If you reach the curve of the Marilaque Highway, you missed it.
- You will see a fork on the road after a few meters, one turning left, the other heading straight. Turn left.
- Follow this road until you reach this part (in the pictures). The road signage clearly indicates to follow the road on the right. I also remember passing some road signs that mentioned ongoing roadworks headed to Pililia Wind Farm so this may just be a temporary re-direction.
- We simply followed this road until we could see the tall windmills from the car. Take note of the state of the road. You need to be careful.
We stopped when we reached a sort of plateau with mango trees. We didn't want to push further because the path was no longer paved and the Honda Jazz will probably not make the trip.
The kids were excited to see mango trees!
Oh and we did see a herd of cows on the way!
