It must have been because I was so
tired from the long hike the day before, mixed with finishing that
hike of legs 3 and 4 after dark. But I wandered up and down Jinha
Beach for a long time looking for the sign that ended leg 4 and
started leg 5. I couldn't find it for the life of me.
The next morning, I got up, found a
couple muffins for breakfast and walked to the corner where I had
stopped and the sign was there as big as a billboard. I had walked
past it at least three times while searching. I stopped in front of it to catch my breath. I think I kind of leaned on it for a moment. I had even stopped my
tracking app on the phone about ten feet away from it... and still
didn't see it. Here it is. I was really tired...
Jinha Beach is a beach town just south
of Ulsan, within that city's greater metropolitan region. Ulsan is
apparently a city of some major industry. These are a couple of
photos of the waterfront/harbour area. I am tempted to say it looks
horrible and I wouldn't want to do anything down there, but Ulsan
disagrees, apparently.
It seems the area also once was a whaling
centre and there are whale watching tours that go out of the city
now, presumably from the waterfront. I think you can just see a whale watching tour boat just to the left of the museum And they built this beautiful
whale museum to bring in the tourists. Korea still has some learning
to do on where to put nice tourist attractions, in my opinion. These
photos were taken in the same spot. Now you may be thinking to
yourself, “Oh no! The next leg of the trail went here? How awful.
Surely he quit after this.”
Don't fret! I am showing you what
Ulsan has along the shore. And they seem to understand that people
don't want to walk through that. So the trail takes a big detour
inland and mostly around Ulsan (at least it looks to be so on the
map) and not through the industrial and ugly parts of the waterfront.
They get it! (Did you understand that Busan? Please, Busan, do
something about legs 3 and 4. I'm begging you!!)
So what I saw was this. It began with
a walk along the river that leads out to Jinha Beach. The river is
fairly wide where it meets the East Sea (that the rest of the world
knows as the Sea of Japan, and for any Korean that reads this... I
don't really want to hear it) and there are many fishing vessels that
moor along the riverbank.
Then it was inland into fairly natural
and hilly areas that shut out the city for the most part. There
wasn't a lot of greenery, but it is winter time, so not a lot was
expected. There were manicured paths, and mostly frozen rivers. The
frozen rivers seemed to have undergone some thawing and then
refreezing, and that created some interesting patterns in the ice.
Where the river wasn't frozen, water
birds could be seen. This lucky shot was of a heron viewed through
some twigs on a barren tree just as some ducks flew past.
It was all just grand, and a very nice
day for a walk. Until...
The last part of the leg headed through
the eastern parts of Ulsan to a railway station on the east coast
line, Deokha Station. It went over a bridge and then I assume it used
to continue along the river for a little bit. At least, the arrows
point in that direction.
Okay. I will go this way.
Erm... Hmm... It certainly looked
like the construction had been going on for quite some time, although
in Korea that's not necessarily the case. But I think it probable
that this construction came to the attention of the people who are in
charge of the trail. I think this because, after trying for about
half an hour to find the trail leading through the construction site
(and not finding it), I found another sign around a corner and down a
ways (where nobody could see it from the original trail) leading in
the opposite direction. Only that led into a different construction
site for a major new road in town. I stopped taking photos at that
point, as I was whacking through bushes and forest to find a way
around the road construction and back to the trail somehow. (Uh, Ulsan? There is a little bit of work to do.) And from
there it was only another kilometre or so to reach the terminal point
for the leg at Deokha Station.
From here on, I will do a better job of
documenting the trek in photos. When I started it, I hadn't thought
of the idea of writing a blog about it. So the photos to this point
have been less that a complete record.
It will also be a couple of weeks
before I make my way back there to continue as it's back to work time
and the lunar new year will be in the way, too. Nobody in their
right mind tries to go anywhere in Korea during that holiday if they
don't have to.
So, until the next one, cheers.
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