Leaving our campsite the road became a bit hilly, on the way to Suanbo. Suanbo is famous for its hot springs, however when we arrived there in the morning there was very little life in town and we did not see anything from the hot springs... We did see a supermarket, so could finally do some more grocery shopping. It still wasn't easy; very little choice, or things we did not know, or at least we could not understand what was in the packages. All fresh products were prepackaged in big quantities; you don't want to take a few kg of apples, or a bag of 10 onions on your bicycle. We found some things we could use of course, it gave us a day or 2 of supplies. The next thing was to be able to take all that on the bike - solved by putting it in a box and tying it to the rear rack of the bicycle...
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| Picnic on the way up to Iwharyeong, the highest climb of the 4 River trail |
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| A stamp in our passport at the top |
This was a day with quite a few climbs, even one of around 400m elevation gain in less than 5km; pretty steep with parts of up to 10%. Luckily some of the China mountain training was still left in our legs, so we cycled up with no problem. I guess all together this was a day with around 700-800m climbing, not that much but also not negligible. We did 70km and ended the day at a nice campsite amidst pine trees, a few km south of Jeomchon. It was a semi-wild campsite like a few days before, just pitch your tent and take care of yourself, but there was again a toilet and drinking fountain which makes it much easier. We had a short police visit, good fun, not sure if it was just coincidence that they dropped by, or whether they came around to "check" who planned to camp there. In any case, they were funny and friendly (even gave us a bottle of "health drink" - still no idea what was in it) and it was absolutely no problem to stay there.
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| Semi-wild camping again |
Yesterday then was a very nice day, really beautiful, again nothing remarkable or special but just constantly nice. It was so nice, we truly enjoyed to continue cycling, we went on and on, and happily did 108km. The ride went through a beautiful area around Sangju, where the biking facilities were impressive - they even made a bicycle museum! Tour biking in Korea is really about the pleasure of cycling, as it's nice and easy cycling, and in combination with the great camping there is no "need" to do other things. The cycling remains easy, although there are certainly some hills, some are real climbs and some are just bumps - which can be very steep however. They're often more than 10%, we have even seen 18 and 20%. We even had a climb of a few 100m long which was over 20%, it was the first time on this trip that I had to get off my bicycle and push!
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| Ellen "stuck" on a very steep climb |
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| Coffee break in a really beautiful park near Sangju; it would have been a fantastic camping spot, but way too early in the day to stop! |
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| Great cycling! |
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| More great cycling on a path over the river |
We met a group of Singaporean cyclists a few times, it was nice to chat with them, especially with the familiar accent! We continued cycling, on and on, in the end still went on a while trying to find a suitable camp spot. As happened before, we saw a lot of really nice places to pitch our tent in the earlier part of the day, and nothing feasible once we actually started to look for it. In the end we found a decent place near some sports centre, had our dinner first, and pitched the tent once it was almost dark. Thanks to the dark tent colour we were almost invisible, no problem at all!
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| Our "improvised" campsite, in the morning. |
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| No comment |
Then today we made it a shorter day (48km) and rode into Daegu, a big city. An easy day riding, another beautiful spring day, and the first stop in a guest house instead of our tent. We booked a guesthouse online, and when we arrived it was more like a homestay. It's a small apartment with a few small rooms, shared with the lady who runs the place. She's a kind grandma, doing her very best to help and trying to explain a lot of things to us - in Korean which doesn't work obviously... We had a relaxed and enjoyable afternoon, walking around the city a bit, had to do some more walking to find a nice place for dinner but eventually had a great Korean meal, and are now totally ready to sleep in a bed rather than a mattress in our tent (although, to be honest, we have slept super well, the hot shower in the guesthouse was probably more important...).
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| Ah, those coffee breaks!!! |
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| Selfie in our guesthouse room |