Busan
2 Days, No Cycling! Imagine a flat peice of clay that someone then punches widely spaced random indentations into with their fingers, well Busan clings to the flatter bits of land on this tableau and ignores all the mountains. It means the city is separated into districts on various sides of these ridges and each district has its own character. The district we stayed in was along the river that we’d cycled, it was the industrial supplies area but was bustling and livley and our hotel was a gorgeous boutique hotel where we managed to get a deluxe room for less than a...
Read MoreThe end of the line…
Hyeonpung to Busan 3 nights 179km 590m climb (1095km total) Our first wine in 4 weeks and it’s sparkling too Our final stamp on the cross country route The end of the Cross country route with Hugo and Bego A bit damp We arrived in Busan in a gale (for once behind us) following Hugo and Bego, a lovely Spanish couple who are half way into a round the world cycle. At the final checkpoint on the Nakdongang a Singaporean couple and a Korean man arrived at the same time and it was a great celebration for us all having completed the trip – though it’s more like a simple day...
Read MoreWimping out…
Andong to Hyeonpung 4 nights 225km 759m climb (916km total) The hills out of Andong for some reason really bothered us so we decided we’d try to avoid them as we retraced our steps down stream. The route so far has had numerous posters advertising lifts for cyclists up and over hills so we visited tourist information and enquired about booking one. This proved way too expensive and only took the bike so we just went for the old fashioned pedal and push instead. The first hill was actually fine and we got to within 50m of the top before having to push. The second hill was...
Read MoreHills, mountains and views
Chungju to Andong 4 days 232km 1164m climb (691km total) Now I’ve mentioned our dislike of hills on facebook – at length – so after leaving Chungju refuelled we headed south and onto the Saejae Cross country route. It’s only a 100km but it’s across the highest mountains on the route, though the Swiss may challenge the word ‘mountain’ but when you’re cycling a fully loaded tandem (tent, sleeping bag(!), hair straighteners etc) 540m certainly feels like a mountain. First we took a short cycle to the spa town of Suanbo and...
Read MoreRunning on a pedal and a prayer…
270km 6 days 1100m climb (500km total) Coming to Korea for a vegetarian is apparently akin to going to Nashville if you hate country music, add in making it a cycling holiday and it’d be like going to Nashville if you hate country music, America and Americans. We need about twice the normal amount of calories a day when cycling and have been getting about half our normal food consumption. By the time we reached Chungju we were finding even the flat stretches hard work and having to push Tilly up an 800m 10% Hill to get a passport stamp only to find the Chungjudam passport...
Read MoreLight sabers, stormtroopers and Love Hotels
Seoul to Chuncheon 2 days 142km 476m climb South Korea’s police seem to have got a bulk deal on sawn off light sabers. There are loads of police at junctions and they all have a sawn off light saber which they wave whilst blowing whistles. Given that often there’s only the occasional car we’re not quite sure why they do this, but at we said before the drivers here are by and large very good, so maybe it’s a good way of getting high standards of driving. The Star Wars theme is continued by the cyclists. They all wear full length leggings,...
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