Leg 33: Chuam Beach to Mukho Station

Leg 32 had taken until early afternoon, so I continued on with leg 33.  The beach at the stop/start point was quite nice, but was destined not to remain so for all that much longer.  A whole bunch of new pension/motels with coffee shops or convenience stores were almost complete.  The charm of a lonely beach, or at least one that was not built up was almost a thing of the past.  This has been a continual sight along the way up the coast, unfortunately.  I wonder what some of the Koreans who go to these beaches would think of some beaches on the Canadian west coast, where you might not see a manmade structure for miles, and there is actual wildlife.  I wish they could experience it.  But I suspect developers here will ensure that they never will… not in Korea at least.

The start/end point was also the location of a booth on the bicycle path up the coast as well.  The hiking trail has been running fairly parallel with a bicycle path, and through Gangwon province, that I entered a bit south of Samcheok, it has been part of the bicycle tour that goes with the Four Rivers Project.  This is a bicycle tour that has a passport, with stamps and prizes for completion.  Alas, I had forgotten my passport, and I was unable to get this or the next three or four stamps.  I may come back at some point to get those stamps.  (Sure, I haven’t ridden my bicycle along the pathway, but surely my feet count for something…)

The coast around this area was quite rocky, but that made for some rather spectacular scenery.

Then it was on into Donghae.  Donghae is another fairly industrial city on the coast.  But where Ulsan, far to the south by this point, seemed intent on celebrating how industrial it was with people walking the nature trail, Donghae seemed to understand that people on a nature trail don’t really want to see that.  There was some encroachment on the natural trail by the city and its industry…

But the trail hurried past the concrete plants and found green spaces with rice fields and rutted dirt tracks to follow.

Along the way, the trail led past the old-looking Donghae train station.

Then it was onto more coastal stuff.

As the day was fading into night, I reached the final stretch that led down an older street, past older homes and little shops and finished behind another train station, Mukho Station.  However, for all that Donghae seemed to understand that nature trail hikers don’t want to see industry, there was a part to this that really didn’t make sense.  The end of the leg finished right smack dab in the middle of Donghae’s red light district.  And it was open for business.  I did not, therefore, take any photos of the area as I finished.  I didn’t need any enraged prostitutes chasing me around trying to smash my camera.  There was no leg marker sign, for what I suppose were obvious reasons.  But the trail could easily have been routed along the road out front to end at the train station.  Instead the trail was routed to end in that area, seemingly quite deliberately.  I could only shake my head.