Geoff Jones

I woke to thick mist over the river but every sign it was going to be a great day. I wasn’t as starving as I thought I would be after my two fried eggs and small bowl of rice for dinner. Well it is a big beef growing area 🙁 It’s really surprising how local meat products are in Korea).

I was quickly away popping into town for some bread goodies and a choccy bar with a bottle of coffee, surprisingly tasty 🙂

The cycleway is virtually 100% of the way, beautifully smooth with lots of boardwalks on stilts in the river going around the headlands instead of up and over – much easier biking. A minor problem was a lack of cafes although once I got to Gumi there was a street market of food vans, they insisted on selling a minimum of 3 sweetcorns 🙁 just like the shops will only sell you 4 bananas!  Crossing the river in Simi Dong I found a real cafe 🙂 the sun was getting hot so I exposed my legs and arms to the sun for the rest of the day.

Approaching Daegu I took the magnificent boardwalk along the river, with a few hundred other folks too 🙂 at the crossing it was amazing to see a whole panoply of battery devices from Segway knock offs,  battery driven scooters with huge tyres etc etc a real holiday atmosphere.

I couldn’t face going into the huge town and I was getting on so well, I just love biking in the sun 🙂 so I skipped the town and kept on the opposite bank. At the huge bridge with a narrow cycleway I stupidly kept following the 4 River signs which were obviously for folks wanting to go in the city! So I turned the maps on and did a nice loop back to the correct direction!

The stress of that and seeing a long empty path ahead with over 90km on the clock made me turn off to find a motel in Oxpomyeon. I saw the modern looking Motel Inus which is good, next to a 7-11 and dumpling shop 🙂 I was a bit worried about the lack of a restaurant but I followed the vast queue of cars going down the cherry tree blossom road and lo and behold there was a huge fair underway with one of the stalls selling vegetable pancakes & beer 🙂

Strava says I did 57.7 miles at a good speed of 11.3mph which with all the photo stops is good (OK I had the wind behind me most of the time). Tomorrow could be the end of the trail in Busan!

The days pics are here

I woke up to the sound of pouring rain 🙂 However, by the time  I had eaten my honey toast for breakfast and chatted to the others the rain had cleared up, although the forecast was still pretty dire for the day.

This is the 4 Rivers Trail big hill day 🙂 where you cross the watershed between the mighty Han and Naktong river systems. The hills were nowhere as bad as folks made out, virtually all the riding is on the old wide main road which is now totally deserted as all the traffic uses the new tunnels & dual carriageway. The gradient is around 5 to 6% with only a few small spots at 10% so really it’s just a grind 🙂 on clearer days the views must be fantastic although quite why every viewing platform is surrounded by tall trees is a bit of a mystery. The cafe on the top is OK too.

The main difficulty for me was the cold, especially on the long descent. I ended up diving into the first coffee shop at the bottom and standing in front of the AC drinking a hot chocolate 🙂

Just after Buljeongdong there is a diversion in place so I had to leave the Naktong River and do another 200 feet of climbing! before finally hitting Mungyeong / Jeomchon. After some effort I finally found the KB bank, opposite Paris Baguette, that had a Global Service cashpoint so I could restock up on 10,000WON notes 🙂

I found the Motel Olleh near the station offering a good price so I messaged the others thats where I would be. A short while later Tim & Viv showed up, followed several hours later by Scott & Laura.

The rain held of until the evening so the riding was in the dry. Strava says I did 36 miles and 2,855 feet of climbing. The photos of the day are here 

The town is quite pleasant with lots of eateries just a pity about the weather! I’ve now added the diversion and other stuff to OSM.