To the Coast at Gunsan

 A new day!  Bright sunshine, hardly a cloud to be seen.  I raided my tucker bag, not much there, but enough to get me on the road...  Peanut butter, banana and nutella sandwich is great food for a cyclist!

Soon we were on our way, tracking down to the wonderful blue line by the river and away we go.  About 65km ahead of us - so thankful I put in the extra kms yesterday.

I was in a little more cruisey mood today, it being the last day out on the bike path, trekking inland South Korea.  I had already used up a couple of my spare days in Plan F, so I was tossing up whether to continue riding back to Incheon (airport island) up along the west coast, with the hassles of 4 days cycling through smaller towns and finding a motel and the stress of departure day drawing closer... or to catch a bus back to Seoul, spend a day or 2 there, then cycle back to airport area.  

I had booked accommodation in Gunsan - Top Cloud Hotel - for 3 nights as I wanted to spend one day cycling out to an island off the coast via a bridge.  So I had the day to ponder my options as I rolled along, religiously following that blue line!  

Such a different day than yesterday.  hazy skies, its never a clear blue, but the sun was belting down and not much shade along the path.  Still it was enjoyable for a Queenslander to be out on the bikeway, though others might find it a little too hot.

The Geum river is massive and as we headed towards the coast it got wider and wider.  The gullies and smaller creeks and rivers were adding to its size also.  in places it must be more than 2km across.  Nothing on the river though... no fishing boats, no cruise ships.  An occasional fisherman, but it seemed to be ignored by the locals.  

At an early stage, we arrived at a barrier on the path and thankfully the sign had some English written on it.  Bikeway closed due to possible landslips, detour this way...  Was this sign new or old?  it looked like it had been there a while and there was an obvious well used track around the barrier.  But I had received (by some mysterious method) an emergency warning on my phone, warning of landslips and saying evacuate hillside areas.  These warnings arrive with the sound of a fire alarm going off, frightening the beejeesus out of me every time.  they are in Korean and the first one I received, I asked the 7/11 attendent to translate.  It was warning us of the heat wave, saying stay inside and drink lotsa water... I had just bought 2l!  So I have since learnt how to Google translate them.  But the mystery of their appearance remains.  I don't have any phone connectivity here as I haven't bothered buying a Korean sim card.  Even if wifi is turned off, these warnings arrive on my phone.  For example, last night starting at 11:28pm and continuing off and on (usually just as I got back to sleep!) till 2:35am, when I eventually turned my phone off.  strange and annoying.  I did translate one and it was just warning to be careful of crews cleaning out flood debris.  I ignored the rest as much as one can!  my phone will be turned off tonight!  Hopefully there's no tsunami warnings or such like!  

anyways, back to the trail...  The detour led me through a market garden area, small houses and lots of fields of vegies and well as rice paddies.  I stopped in at one tiny supermarket to buy more water.  But I was worrying about getting back to that wonderful blue line.  

Eventually, after dashing across a road leading thru extensive rice paddies, with the sound of explosions ringing in my ears (the cause of which remains unknown) we found the blue line and continued through more farmlands, acres of plastic covered "greenhouses".  The blue line then led up a small alley way and onto a narrow road snaking up a steep hill.  due to the greenery and general mud and dirt, the blue line disappeared as did my confidence that I was on the right track still.  But after a quick check on Maps.Me, it confirmed I was still on track.  

A really steep pitch led into a quiet shady pine forest, so we paused there until my heatbeat returned to somewhat normal.  This little spell reminded me so much of some of the pine forests I have travelled through in Japan.  Then a gentle tapping sound led my eye up to a small woodpecker, possibly cleaning out a nesting hole in the end of a broken branch.  Looking up with the bright sky behind, made it hard to get a good look at its details, but a woodpecker for sure!  Great Stuff!

Around the corner the Geum suddenly appeared way down below.  There was a wooden boardwalk stuck on the edge of the cliff, its boards clunking as we rode over them...  And then there was the perfect spot for a lunch break.  

After lunch, the path dipped back down to the river side, with its many ups and down along the top of the flood dyke down to the river side.  This section was quite exposed and I could feel my toes getting sunburnt, no matter how much sunscreen I applied.  Summer time!

Eventually we arrived at the end of the bike way on the edge of Gunsan.  This area is a migratory bird feeding spot, but its too late in the season to see any as they are now nesting in Siberia.  But I did see a spoonbill as well as a couple of species of sea gulls, a heron and an egret.  

Next thing was to track down the Top Cloud hotel, which thankfully. Maps.Me was still working and it easily led us to our destination.  Phew!  Hennie was unloaded and stored in a corner near the cleaners rooms and I caught the lift to the 7th floor.  Interesting though, there are no buttons in the lift for floors 1-4.  When I went for a walk, I looked back and counted the windows and sure enough, there are 7 floors, but the lift numbers are 5-11...  hmmm...

The room is small - smaller than last night's motel room, but it is very clean and modern and the bed looks comfy and its all that I need.  And next door is a proper supermarket.  Surely I can get some more fruit as I've run out.

So, the West Coast has been reached.  My ponderings over this day has led me to decide that I will check out the bus situation, I already know there's no train line here, and I will head back to Seoul, do the tourist thing there for a couple of days, before cycling back to the airport.  There are several hotel options there, but the island itself is worth a pedal around.  Decisions have been made.  Now to enjoy the couple of days I have in Gunsan.  

Just a few pics today...