During this segment, we cycled (Ok! we walked) over the highest point of our route in South Korea. We also had some of our longest cycling days. We collected another 10 stamps (23 out 29) in our Bicycle passport along the way.

2024.04.16 – [KR] Chungju ==> Suanbo (25 kms | Total: 380 kms)

We were startled by the rainfall this morning. Thankfully the sky cleared up while we were having breakfast. Given our short cycling distance, we left our hotel at 10:15am. Our route elevation profile indicated that we would be climbing up through out our 25 kms distance to our next hotel. The slope was in fact quite gentle. We arrived in town by 1:15pm while our hotel check-in was scheduled for 3:00pm. Jenny managed to get access to our room by 1:30pm. After showering, we went out to explore the small hot spring town. We purchased some snacks and our first Korean beer to celebrate our first (gentle) climb. Our hotel room hot water was dispensed from an Onsen hot spring. In the evening, we had our first western meal: pizza and BBQ chicken at the restaurant attached to our hotel. A robot delivered our meals to our table. In the evening, we continued exploring the remaining streets in town.

2024.04.17 – [KR] Suanbo ==> Sangpunggyo (72 kms | Total: 452 kms)

We had light complementary breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant. We expected a challenging cycling day as we would be going through the highest point of our cycling route. We had two serious climbs to go over today. In both cases, the slope was just above our capacity hence we walked most of the time. In reviewing our itinerary last week, we had opted to combine two shorter cycling days into a longer day. Hence after conquering our two climbs, we expected to coast down a gentle incline for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, the head wind greatly limited any coasting. Interestingly, for the past two days, it has been unnerving for us to hear and see fighter jets roaming in the sky. We simply hoped that no north/south conflict would emerge during our stay. We were both tired when we reached our traditional Guest House at the end of the day as we had cycled over 70kms. Our older couple hosts got us to shower in an adjoining building before they allowed us get into their house. The host even did our laundry for free. As we were the first guests, we had the choice of rooms. We used our Papago translation app extensively during our stay, namely to confirm that we would be coming back to their Guest Home in two days. The evening meal prepared by our Hosts was delicious. We retreated to our room early as we were exhausted from long challenging cycling day. We collected 3 more Certification Center stamps today (17 of 29 stamps).

2024.04.18 – [KR] Sangpunggyo ==> Andong (65 kms | Total: 516 kms)

We had a sound good night sleep on our mattress on the floor room. At 8;00 am our host had prepared breakfast for us and the other 2 young cycling guests who arrived after dark last night. By 8:40am, we left our Guest House and cycled east towards the town of Andong some 64kms away. This significant detour was deemed necessary in order to collect our stamp for a remote Certification Center. The number of cyclists we’ve encountered over the past two days have dwindle to only a hand-full. The scenery along our route was a bit boring as it passed mostly through agricultural fields. We arrived at our hotel by 2:30pm after tackling a few steeper uphills along the way. After shower, we visited a supermarket where we bought (expensive) fruits, snacks and our dinner. In the evening, we were eager to just relax in our room. We did not encounter any Certification Center today.

2024.04.19 – [KR] Andong ==> Andong (8 kms | Total: 525 kms)

We both had a very restful night sleep. We started our rest day with the hotel complementary breakfast. After brake adjustment on tandem, I cycled 4kms to the Andong Dam Certification Center to get our Bike passport stamp. Later, we walked for about 2 hr around town and finished at a nearby coffee shop. Back in our room, Jenny rested a bit while I booked our remaining hotels in South Korea. We picked up our dinner at a nearby food market and returned to our room to eat. It was a good relaxing day to give our bums a rest.

2024.04.20 – [KR] Andong ==> Sangpunggyo (64 kms | Total: 589 kms)

With a forecast of rain starting in mid-day, we opted to get an early start to our cycling day. We had our hotel’s breakfast at 7:00am and left town by 7:40am. As we retraced our route from two days ago, we got to tackle the same climbs but from the other direction. We encountered some light rain near the end of our day towards the traditional Guest house. Our guests were expecting us. After a warm shower, we ate some snacks and relaxed in our room. Two solo cyclists showed up later in the afternoon by then the rain was falling continuously. We enjoyed yet again the dinner prepared by our hosts. Our route detour and stay in Andong to collect one stamp took us roughly 128km of cycling.

2024.04.21 – [KR] Sangpunggyo ==> Gumi (66 kms | Total: 656 kms)

After breakfast, we bid farewell to our hosts by 8:40am and rejoined the nearby bicycle path. Although the forecast suggested the rain had stopped, we still fell a mist in the rain. We were surprised by the steepness of some of the uphills we encountered in our first 16 kms. Thankfully for us, we cycled on level pathways for the remainder of day. We stopped at 3 Certification Centers along the way before reaching our hotel in Gumi. We both appreciated, after a long cycling day, the comfort of our modern hotel. After settling into our room, we went out to purchase some snacks and explore the restaurant offering in the neighborhood. In the evening we had a delicious meal of local specialty of chicken and pizza.

2024.04.22 – [KR] Gumi ==> Daegu (48 kms | Total: 703 kms)

We enjoyed a relaxing breakfast at our hotel as we planned for a later departure today. Since the start of our South Korea travel, Jenny has been getting acquainted with bidet in our hotel – most of our accommodation offered them. It seems she is now hooked on them. Over the past week, we’ve noticed many locals practicing an outdoor activity that we were not familiar with. We learned the activity was called gateball and it was most popular in China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Before lunch time, we met Mathias at a Certification Center. He was a Brazilian solo cyclist, who had recently left his architectural job in Sydney to cycle through South Korea and parts of Japan. We chatted for 30+mins about our respective cycling experience in South Korea. Our day’s cycling was mostly on level winding pathways. We checked into our hotel by 2:30pm even though the official check-in time was 5:00pm. We had our first Korean BBQ yesterday at a very reasonable price. Our hotel district had abundant number of Korean BBQ restaurants. While planning for our ferry crossing between South Korea and Japan, we encountered some push back from the hydrofoil ferry company who indicated that our tandem was too long. We indicated that we could easily break-up the bicycle in two for the sailing. We were requested to send photos tomorrow to certify the collapse length of the tandem. Fingers crossed!

2024.04.23 – [KR] Daegu ==> Daegu (0 kms | Total: 703 kms)

After our hotel breakfast, we disassembled the tandem into two parts in order to take pictures of the collapse size. We emailed a selected set of photos to the ferry company for review and awaited their response. I took the opportunity to clean the dirt off the tandem from the previous day’s rain and make some basic maintenance. In the afternoon, we took a long walk towards a coffee shop outlet that we enjoyed previously in Andong. On our way back, we purchased our evening meal at a supermarket. At 4:00pm, the ferry company replied that our tandem would need to be packaged in a bag and carried on-board as the split tandem would not fit their bicycle rack. Although we think we can accomplish this requirement by breaking out the tandem further by disconnecting its 2nd set of S+S coupler. As the saying goes: “we are somewhat between a rock and hard place”. The alternate slow car ferry (11h travel) seems, from their online reservation system, to only start its seasonal sailing to Japan on May 2nd. While the hydrofoil passenger-only ferry which we are trying to board takes only 3h 40mins to cover the same distance. We proceeded to purchase our tickets on the hydrofoil with the hope that everything works out. After our dinner in our room, we went out for one last walk around our neighborhood.