Leg 16: Heunghwan Medical Centre to Songdo Beach

 

This leg did not start well. After getting caught in the cold rain the night before, I got a good night's sleep and headed out towards my stopping point at Heunghwan. I thought I was starting in plenty of time and it would be fairly easy and routine to catch the bus I had gotten into Pohang. Wrong.

As my bus arrived into the transfer spot, I saw a bus ahead of us. For some obscure reason that only someone who has the sorts of odd mishaps I seem to make a habit of, I just knew that was the bus I wanted. I knew it in my bones. And it was ahead of my bus. I hoped against hope. And, yes! It slowed at a stop and I hit the stop button for my bus. I vaulted off the bus and raced towards the bus I wanted, just as it was starting off. It slowed. I had hope. It almost stopped, and I had the idea that the bus driver looked in the mirror and saw me. And left. Oh, you have got to be kidding me! How could he do that? I was so annoyed. Now I was going to have to wait for the next one. And I was even more annoyed because the bus the previous night had been two hours in between.

To make matters worse, the rain must been on the leading edge of a cold front. Despite there being a bright sun and blue sky, there was a decidedly chilly wind blowing. I went to find a place to sit and wait for the bus. I hoped it was only going to be an hour because it was daytime. At the turnoff on the way to the medical centre, I found a bus shelter and sat down to wait. I waited. And I waited. And I waited. The hour passed. No bus. Sigh! Two hours it was then. I waited past two hours and there was still no bus. It was 11 o'clock by this time and I was unsure what would come of the wait. I found my way into a store at another bus station, and I was freezing by this time because of the wind. I asked when the next bus would be. Uh, really? Not until almost two in the afternoon? I thought I had heard wrong. But no.

In order to get out to the start/end between legs 15 and 16, a hiker pretty much has to be sure of getting the 9 o'clock bus. Otherwise it's an afternoon into evening hike. But nowhere is there any information explaining this piece of very important advice.

In the bus shelter there was this figure in the paint that had cracked away. It looked a bit like Mr. Mole was waiting for the bus with me. Alas... It was not going to work out well this day. I was so annoyed about it all and dejected, and cold, that I just headed back home, intending to make it work the next time.

There is a certain irony in this. I had pushed on with leg 15 into the uncertainty of the weather because I figured I could get farther along the trail before heading back to Seosan. At the very least I was going to reach the end of leg 17. I figured I might even have managed to cover leg 18 before heading back. Instead, with the bus fiasco, I ended up stopping after leg 15. Had I let the weather rule out at Homigot, which was an easier destination bus-wise, I would not have had to deal with the very infrequent bus and I would have gotten much farther on my sudden long weekend. Oops!

I licked my wounds at home for a couple of weekends. I also got out and finally met some people in my area. I headed back out to Pohang three weeks later.

But I had been walking a long way up the coast by this point. In my running shoes. Which were really designed for long-distance hiking/walking. They were pretty dead. It was time to get some actual trekking shoes, which I found in Seoul one weekend. Yay! It is rare to find a pair of shoes that don't require any particular breaking in period. These pretty much fit my feet like gloves.

I headed out to Pohang on the late bus again. These legs are going to be somewhat inconvenient because the anchor towns and cities are not easy to get to from Seosan. The buses run at times that don't work well for me. Oh well. It's a project. A short sleep later, I got up quite early, and got a bus out to my transfer point, in plenty of time for the very infrequent bus. I was almost an hour early for it. I was not missing the bus again.

While I was waiting, I looked around here and there. There was a vending machine right beside the bus stop. It was one of those game machines where you have to push the thing you want out as a prize. These were in there. They are in Korean, but I'm sure you can figure out the Captain America key chain. The other one though... MacGuyver was never known for having his trusty carabiner... I think they stretched that one a bit.

In due time, the bus came along and I was on my way. The man in the store by the medical centre recognized me. I'm always a little flattered that people remember me weeks later in isolated spots like that. Then I remember that I'm a white guy passing by an isolated spot like that. Probably doesn't happen every day. I'd probably remember it, too, if a pink elephant passed me in the street.

He directed me back to the trail and I was on my way. It continued as the previous leg had gone. There was more of the pastoral spots, with small little communities along the road.

Between them were endless hills with bare trees, waiting for spring.

Of course, the signs were that spring was not far away.

I happened on a cemetery in the hills. What a nice final resting place that would be. I don't want to take up that kind of space when I'm finished with life, but if I were inclined to have myself buried, this would be the kind of cemetery I would prefer... that is if a dead person can prefer anything at all, being dead and all.

Halfway through the leg, I came down out of the hills and The Blight came into view. Pohang is the steel centre of Korea. The big company that makes steel is called Posco. Their plant is on a little outcropping of land just at the edge of the city. It's not quite as ugly as all the heavy industry in Ulsan, but it's not really a pleasant sight. (It does, however, look quite striking lit up at night.)

But first it was the beach leading up to it. The seas were quite active with large waves, a strong breeze (that was nonetheless much warmer than my last visit to the area), and lots of wave-crashing noise. Quite soothing...

Pohang also seems to be something of a whale-watching community.

 

Then it was past the rather uninspiring Posco plant. I did find their slogan to be... erm... is anyone else dubious?

Past Posco and around the corner into town, the leg finished at Songdo Beach. With the strong winds of that day, there were people out on the water, kite-surfing. It looked like a lot of fun.

There had been no leg information sign at Heunghwan Medical Centre. There was no sign here at the beach either. So again I had to make it up. This was my choice for the end. Pohang has so far been much better with route markers and other signs pointing the way, but the leg information signs need a bit of work.

Leg 15: Homigot to Heunghwan Medical Centre

 By the time I arrived at Homigot, the sky was clouding up a bit. It looked like there was rain on the way. But the sun wasn't completely gone. I pondered for a little while. I decided that if the sun was still out, I could get most of the way through the next leg before it really started to rain... if it was really going to rain. The cloud cover had been coming and going all morning and just when I thought it was going to sock in and start raining, it would clear again. I might be lucky and not get rained on at all. I chanced it. I kept on with the leg 15.

 

The Homigot area is a tourist area and there are a number of things to keep one occupied while there. There is also a little lighthouse museum. It's quite interesting, in its way. It is something you might consider if you ever give the area a visit. Of course, all the explanations inside are in Korean, so you can only look at the various pieces of equipment used in lighthousing. But it's interesting nonetheless.

After that short interlude, I headed on up the trail. The trail broke what had been mostly “the rules” up to this point. It headed inland on the little peninsula and into the hills. I'm not sure why it left the coastline in this spot. There was a road following the coast around in the direction of Pohang. Yet the trail headed up and over the hills of the peninsula instead. It was a welcome reprieve.

The trail first skirted a fair-sized reservoir. There were a couple of ducks swimming in the reservoir. I guess winter really is more or less over here.

 

Then I passed an old folks home. This seemed a bit odd to me. It is in no way convenient. It's 3 or 4 kilometres up in the hills, at the back end of a fresh water reservoir, not on any road that could be considered major, and between two smaller cities in the country. If I were the cynical sort, I'd say someone was trying to hide away the old people where nobody could see them. There didn't seem to be many people there though. I'm not sure what might mean.

Then it was on into the hills of the peninsula. And it was so nice. It was late wintertime, of course, so there were no leaves on the trees, and there were only a few birds about. But the air was clean and fresh. After all the industry I had been seeing up to this point, it was a very welcome change. I was still mostly following a dirt and partial cement road across these hills.

The best part was the water. There was a lot of running water in these hills. It was actually a bit surprising since there was really no obvious place where water could be coming from. I guess there must be a lot of springs in the hills around this peninsula. But after a couple of years of not really seeing a lot of running water in Korea, it was very nice to hear it rushing down these hills. Korea has been in a drought and many of the rivers and creeks I see where I live are only trickles these days.

Then I heard a bunch of what I thought might be nesting birds. When I got closer to the little slough where the sounds were, I couldn't see any birds. And nothing was startled by my presence. I think it must have been perhaps frogs, but it was a rather hypnotic sound. I stood listening for a few minutes before I roused myself by the ever thickening cloud cover.

I hastened down the road to the end point (and once again never found the sign...). When I was about two hundred metres from the end point and the road, I saw a bus coming down the road. If I had run, I think I could have made it and caught the bus. But I was just really tired. And in my tiredness I told myself they wouldn't put an end point on this trail on an inconvenient bus route. I wouldn't be badly off by missing this bus. Right?

Wrong. I let it pass by and then went into the little store that was there and asked when the next one was. Excuse me? Two hours? Oops. It was a good thing that my tablet was charged. I could just sit and read for a while waiting for the bus. And that I did.

Shortly after I arrived at the end point, it started to rain. Good timing, I thought. The bus stop had a shelter so this wasn't particularly problematic. It was unfortunate that I had missed that bus, but I wasn't going to get very wet for it.

After about an hour and a half, suddenly a great gust of wind started up. The wind was throwing stuff all over the place and whipping fabric signs around. More importantly it was pushing rain almost sideways... right into the shelter. Hmmm... I went and huddled in the lee side of a building and waited, while cursing my dithering at Homigot about whether I would continue or not... and cursing the choice to walk through a lighthouse museum with stuff I couldn't read... and cursing standing and listening to all those frogs for those precious minutes. Not doing even one of those things would have put me on that bus I had missed and I wouldn't have been huddling in the lee side of a building while a wild wind roared about. Sigh!

But the bus eventually came and I got back to Pohang and found another nice little motel to stay in and got myself warm again.

I really enjoyed this day's hiking.  It was natural, in many ways, and really what I thought this kind of trail should really be about.  Highly recommended!!

Leg 14: Guryongpo Harbour to Homigot

The place I found in Pohang for the night was off in a little area away from city centre. It was fairly quiet and secluded really. And I got to watch a couple of drivers experience the consequences of driving like maniacs down side streets that are narrow, and with uncontrolled corners that can't be seen around because of high fences and large buildings. Yes, that's right. Two guys went through the same intersection at the same time, without slowing down to make sure they weren't the only ones there. And they found out what happens when two cars try to go through the same intersection at the same time. Key-rash! Free entertainment. (Nobody got hurt. I'm not entirely heartless...)

The weather forecast was for rain at some point this day. The morning had sunshine, though, so I figured I was good for at least one leg before having to decide what to do. And this was the leg that finally started showing the charm of the east coast.

Leg 14 heads out to a point on a little peninsula. Somewhere along this stretch was the easternmost point of South Korea's mainland. The actual point seems to make that claim, but looking at the map there appears to be a spot just south of there that is actually the most easterly point. (In any case, it definitely wasn't the spot just south of Ulsan that made the claim as well, with its fancy lighthouse and amazing park. It was a nice park, however, that made up a lot of the previous 30 kilometres of seafood restaurants and concrete.)

Before heading off on the trail, I took a little while to check out the restored Japanese colonial street in Guryongpo. As anyone who has spent more than a few days in South Korea will know, the dastardly Japanese of the early 20^th century decided Korea was a nice little addition to the Japanese empire. So they came over and took it for their own. From 1910 until the end of the Second World War in 1945, there were Japanese in charge of Korean affairs. The details can be had easily enough, and I have no wish to offend anyone by getting it completely, or even partially, wrong. (Plus any narrative that doesn't conform to official versions seems to bring rather severe consequences.) When the Japanese left, there were residences, and other buildings that were left behind. I imagine most have been destroyed, as it is a time of great anguish to the South Korean people. Not surprisingly, they don't really wish to have that many reminders of that time hanging about. Guryong Harbour was apparently a fairly important harbour for the Japanese, and there were a great many buildings in the Japanese style in the little town. They were neglected over the years, but weren't taken down. And recently there has been a desire to preserve at least some of the history of the Japanese occupation, painful as it is. One such effort was here in Guryongpo. An entire street of the Japanese colonial buildings has been restored. There are still some derelict buildings, but overall, the feeling along the street is very Japanese. One can really get a sense of how it might have been during that time. There is even a small free museum with artifacts and items of clothing in one of the larger Japanese buildings on the street. It's well worth the time to just take a stroll down the street if you are ever in Guryongpo Harbour.

After the visit to the Japanese street in town, it was back off and up the trail. Other than being the point that the farthest east on the mainland, Homigot is not anyplace, and it isn't on the way to anywhere else that is particularly special. It is a fairly popular spot, as pretty much anywhere that is the most of anything tends to be, so there were a lot people in the area. But the road and path getting there was calm and quiet. People were mostly in the hurry to get to the easternmost point to be able to take their selfies as they pointed dramatically to the east, so they took the good highway rather than the leisurely coastal road the trail was following.

There was lots to see. The shoreline was rugged and rocky. There were seagulls everywhere.

There were little fishing hamlets, but not the annoying kind, all concrete and boringness. These were charming.

And they provided artsy little opportunities. Being a big crabbing area, there were lots and lots and lots of stacked crab traps here and there. On the other hand, I might be wrong about what these are because I have seen the crabs they sell in the seafood restaurants and I'm not sure they would fit in these traps. But even if I'm wrong, I don't care. These looked cool stacked up like they were.

There were also these guys hanging out to dry. That was a lot of squid.

Homigot is a tourist trap. As noted before any place that is the most of anything almost always is, I find. The easternmost point of South Korea is no exception. Oh look! The hand that can hold up the sunrise, or whatever that actually is.

Oh look! A statue of a little boy pointing in awe east at the rising sun. Awwww!!!!

And there was even a clock counting down the months, days and hours until the sunrise of the next year. I was unsure if it was the solar or lunar new year, as the clock's countdown counter was malfunctioning. I did think that just putting up a 2017 sticker over the 2016 on the ticker at the top was a bit tacky. Surely in a tourist spot, they make enough money to do it properly?

The area had a lot of tourist things. There were sculptures all over and a great big viewing tower of some sort, the typical sort of tourist scene. Well done, I suppose, but still kind of ho hum. But the trail getting there was really nice, and it really started to show the east coast as beautiful. This was a great leg to do.