Cross country bike trails in Korea are a great way to see the country
Experience Korea’s mountains, rivers, beaches, seaside, apple orchards, pheasants, ancient trees, star filled skies, mineral hot springs, fog, waterfalls, dams, bridges, countryside villages, streams, rowers, fishers, Hanji museum, blissful chickens, vengeful winds, pouring rain, old railroad tunnels, and uphill battles.
Korea’s great public transportation lessens the pressure of doing an entire cross country bike course. If you feel like doing half the trip or a section, there are frequent bus terminals and train stations to make an easy return home. For a beginner like myself, this helped me mentally for my travels.
My idea was to go without a strict plan or schedule, and only as far as my legs would allow me in ~5 days, give or take a day. I was lucky to have an experienced bicycle traveler be a guide.
The bike path name : 4 Rivers Course (Seoul to Busan)
Length: ~633 kilometers (Completed just under half)
Day 1: I woke up and decided today I wanted to leave the city. By bike. An impromptu trip. And since all my work was online now, I have freedom to move. It took an hour to pack and we hit the road by 3:30pm.
By nightfall we were at a popular cyclist junction famous for its noodles, then at an island to rest for the night.
Day 2: It’s raining this morning. We walked through the local market and ate kimchi jiggae and pan fried assorted jun. The restaurant owner invited us to stay until the rain downpour lessened. Makgeolli? She insisted. Hmmm…an interesting offer…but we had to go. I was itching to move.
My rain cover wasn’t enough for the large puddles of rainwater. I pedaled with soaked clothes and a pond in my shoes the entire day. Luckily it was a warm day, and I could see the fog hugging the rolling hills from behind my raindrop streaked glasses. We had to do laundry that day, walking across the bridge 1 kilometer to the 24 hour self laundromat felt like an eternity. Shoes went into the shoe washer, then the shoe dryer. A bit of a misunderstanding at the next door CU.
Day 3:
Sore but going anyway. The day was too nice to stay put. The perfect weather.
Throughout our trip we saw many kinds of travelers : Most people with luggage seemed to be foreigners. There were lightly packed cyclists, either going all the way to Busan or doing a section of the trail at a time. We met an older man with a folding bike, and another who wanted to complete the course as a bucket list wish. Someone who took the train to one town and would ride up two towns and take the train back to Seoul. Everyone goes at their own pace.
Camping in an empty campground. Stars in the dark sky. Deafening jets. Millions of Dandelions backlit by the shiny sun. A cat burglar in the middle of the night.
Day 4: My thighs were quietly screaming by now. Could I go on? What was the alternative… we lost the path for a while, rather, we found ourselves in a detour. But it was a reward for Day 2, when drenched in rainwater and pants dirtied with mud, my wet socks and shoes squeaked for hours while passing the misty fog hugged hills.
Day 5: the Suanbo waterfall, we snacked on a convenience store ham sandwich, saltine crackers, and 2 broiled eggs. Lounging on the warm rock and watching the tadpole munching on the mossy boulders below my feet, my anxiety started to disappear. I laid out my shorts and tank top to dry in the sun. A group of ajumas came and gave us an orange, two boiled eggs and two mugwort black sesame rice cakes. I grazed on the rice cake like it was my last.
The skies were clear and I had forgotten the road we came on.
Day 5: I met two mountains that wiped me out.
But we made it to 문경 Mungyeong and enjoyed the 온천 Hot Springs for 9,000KRW. I did a recovery session between the hot, freezing, and sauna rooms.
Then the bus back to Seoul.
My favorite sections were from 양평 Yangpyeong to 수안보 Suanbo which swept through bucolic rolling hills along the Hangang and the backyards of local countryside people.
Most people stay in local accommodations or camp. I did both, but preferred local accommodations for this trip as my camping provisions were limited and most sites were off season, overpriced, or off limits. In the future doing more research as to primitive camping in late spring, early summer and fall would be ideal, but accommodations were cheap at ~35,000KRW per person a night.
I think I’ll put this memory in my pocket for future travels.
