I got a new phone. And I hadn't worked
out how to make it work quite right for this leg. So the distance is
off. I somehow lost about 4 kilometres off what I walked for this
leg. The rated distance for this leg on the map is 13.5 kilometres.
But I found that the hike mapping app was only actually mapping while
the screen was on and I was looking at it. When the screen was off,
it wasn't doing anything and just drew straight lines between my last
point and present point when I would turn the screen back on. Oh
well. But I didn't cheat. Honest.
Leap year is a great thing. Just for
being leap year, I got the leap day off. Well, probably not. It
probably had to do with all the rewiring they had to do in the school
after they moved all the staff rooms around... for no apparent
reason. I have noticed this in Korea. I thought it was just
supermarkets. One day they just rearrange what's on their shelves,
if not the layout of the shelving itself. No explanation, no seeming
particular reason. And they do it periodically. I don't understand.
It just makes people hunt for what they want. That makes no sense
to me. And I can't figure out a good reason why they would do it.
Why would you want your customers to hunt for things? If it weren't
for the fact that all supermarkets seem to do it, I would find one
that doesn't and give it my business. But it seems that supermarkets
are not the only ones that do this. My school rearranged itself over
the winter holiday. I suppose there is probably
a better reason than I can find for supermarkets, but it just seemed
a weird thing to do.
In any case, with all the rewiring and
reconfiguring, and with the first of March, a Tuesday, being a
holiday anyway, we had the Monday off.
But I like my explanation better. It's
leap day!!! Let's have a holiday!!!
But that gave me a sudden long weekend.
(Another feature of Korean life is the lack of notice on being told
things. I was told an hour before the end of the day on the Friday
that the Monday was a holiday. Oh well.) So I made a quick plan to
head back to the trail for more legs. I figured I could get 5 or 6
more legs done. That would get most of the way past the final major
industrial area on the east coast, in Pohang. The weather forecast
looked good. There was supposed to be some rain, but it was to be at
night and I wouldn't have to worry.
Off I went. I got to Pohang around one
in the morning. The information for getting back to Gampo Harbour
was related to arriving in Gyeongju, but for some reason, I couldn't
a bus to go to Gyeongju. I was sure I had done so one other time,
but it wasn't possible this time. So I was a bit confused. Luckily
Pohang is about the same distance away and I figured it had to be
possible to use the Pohang buses. I am going to have to figure out
if some of these legs as I go north are going to be easily possible.
I am going to have far fewer long weekends and such to be going all
the way across to the east coast as I go forward. I am not sure of
how late bus schedules will be going to some of these smaller places.
It could be challenging. But that's what this is all about!
The next morning, I got on the bus and
headed out. It was indeed possible and I was there by about 10.
It was also a great morning, sunny and warm. I headed off.
The harbour was another fishing
harbour, with lots of fishing boats and a concrete wave break. It
appeared some men were fixing up a fishing net for one of the boats.
Then it was up the coast, the fairly
rugged-looking coastline.
I passed a couple of beaches along the
way, with attendant communities.
There was also more power generation to
be seen, but instead of nuclear power this time (ugly), it was wind
power, which was much nicer.
Along the way there was some drying
seaweed.
As well, it looks like they are trying
to make this trail into something more official. These construction
areas appear to be to put walking paths along the highways, or
perhaps they will be dedicated bike lanes. That would be useful as
the roads have no particular shoulders on them when the path follows
the coastal highway. And Korean drivers are not particularly known
for being courteous or overly careful of pedestrians. On the other
hand, as I have noted before the trail really could do with more
natural/wilderness to it. The bike path is the bike path, and it
needs paving. However the walking trail could certainly benefit from
hiking the hills along the coast instead of following a road. But I
think I am hoping for something that isn't going to be.
In any event, this was definitely a
vast improvement in scenery over most of the previous legs to this
point. Things are looking up.
Arriving at end area for the leg, I
once again had difficulty finding the leg marker sign. It was
somewhere around this sign... I think. So this is where I chose to
make the ending for the leg.
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