Jirisan NP To Bongsan –Myeon

Korea, Russia, Stans To East Europe (page 5)

Jirisan NP To Bongsan –Myeon

After a reasonable kip I woke early (6.15am) to some boom boom base music, not sure where it came from but it was enough to vib the floor etc…bastids!!

Waking up alone again without Ellen there…still getting used to that and to be honest I had wee sorrow moment when you “check in” on yourself and reality tells you that you are indeed alone, traveling solo has its advantages and disadvantages and I am still working through these, the romance of solo freedom travel can mean lonely if you don’t get out and make it work, adding to that my Korean is zip thus makes it hard/fun/frustrating.     

Another great riding day with various navigational mishaps that saw me a long way of original intended path…no biggy found other stuff to play with.

Today being Sunday was busy through the national parks, seems like everyone came Busan and today I would have seen in excess of 200 bikes. 

Followed some Harleys for a while heading into Jirisan NP, one had a wee fail so they stopped and waved me on. We caught up at the top and they were cool fellas, I think Dentists and the like trying to be tough on Sunday.

Nothing like low slung clipons 8-)

Sports bike, whoa, shittonnes eh. Adventure GS’s like mossies they were everywhere. Yamaha…..1 except for a MT07 I saw.

I had planned to camp but again they were full, shoulda known given it was the weekend, hopefully this week will see it quieter when everyone is back at work. 

As I am now in the depths of the national parks there are nice rivers etc to boot, this afternoon I was shorting out early with the club music kicking me outa bed early, with no camp grounds in sight I put in Hotel in my GPS, thus far it was useless but today the stars aligned.

I got a nice room for a reasonable price and they had a café at the base in which I had Pork Cutlets for dinner, comfy digs and nice fud and super nice people changes a heart yanking start into a nice day although I got lost and couldn’t camp where I wanted.

Tomorrow…two national parks, coupla snaps from today.     

Dunny stop, very nice wee laybys to pull over at, public toilets everywhere

The view from the top of the park...clouded in again

Rivers like this a lot around here, some MASSIVE rocks in them to the size of houses

The lake/reservoir just along from where I stayed, quite nice

Boongson-Myeon To Gumi-si

 Rags to riches to rags day.

A leisurely start with a slight repack and assessment of gear, I seem to have more clothing than I thought…. B u t I am in stickie hot Korea heading to Siberia so I am not being too hasty to reduce. 

My daily riding gear consists of icebreaker T shirt and 661 MTB shorts with gell pad, the big girlie Klim long socks, Klim jacket and pants that I wore on our Americas trip.

I do have more icebreaker long sleeve and longjohns, so I pulled out the thermal stuff and suddenly my bags were down to size and what I thought they would be.

Trouble when packing for a trip around the world and only six months but encompassing stinking hot to freezing cold and on the Road Of Bones in the back of beyond in Siberia there aren’t many icebreaker shops. 

Still not heavy in the scheme of things and on a smaller 250 shit looks bigger too, stick my kit on a KTM 1190 and you would say “where is the rest of it”?

OK, wardrobe dilemma over I was on my merry way, plan was to do 2 national parks, now Korea is small and I am still trying to get my head around the minimal distances, first up was only 51 km away, next up another 28 km away thus I was done before lunch….hmmpf…have to plan some more.

On this trip I am not planning any big hikes, firstly here in Korea it is stinking hot and very humid and secondly my left knee is still gammy and not up to going downhill, I may however rent a pushie here or there but not in Korea as my time is short. 

First up was NP, there is a road to the top where there is a reservoir, the road was closed and I am not sure while given my fluent understanding of Korean, so bein a good basitd I took photos of the sign board for you guys. 

No need to go to the top it is all right here

This apparently is what is up there.

After leaving this section of the NP I trolleyed off round the road, spotting a skifield and thinking of Ellen I decided to take a looksee.

So I had come from mud huts and rice fields to a 1^st world ski resort, so much so that the dude at the top thought 45 was not cool enough to be amoungst BMW, Audis etc and was shooing me away, I almost videod him but thought it might cause trouble so I waved instead which really fucked with him.   

I swear for a moment I was in Switzerland and could easy be but the photo, the town at the bottom of the hill was deserted tho being out of season, you could fire a canyon and not hit a thing.

Skifield sits at about 700 meters so not high