Seohaerang Gil | Day 46 – 50

12 – 16 May 2025 | Courses 51 – 62 (Gimje to Boryeong)

A busy few days travelling from Gimje to Gunsan and Boryeong to tackle a few of the courses between the small towns. A lot of buses were caught, often getting the intercity bus to the next hotel, then a local bus to the next hiking course! The weather is slowly turning into Spring but there is still a bit of rain.

Day 46: Monday 12 May. It’s a rather hot today with a top of 24°c ☀️ We hike a touch over 16km on courses 51 & 52. The first course is all farms so rather boring aside from witnessing some potato harvesting in action. The second course is a nice surprise with lots of rolling trails. We stop by a nice cafe at the half way mark and have a nice chat to some of the locals. The owner is super friendly and speaks great English – turns out she lived in Washington DC for 20 years! Figure out the buses better than we did in Buan and arrive back in town relatively quickly. Stop by the local markets for a very late lunch at the 시장 포차 (market pocho). Gimje is quite a decent sized town but we are only here for the night. Our next stop is the even bigger town of Gunsan! 🇰🇷

Day 47: Tuesday 13 May. Another warm day, and only meant to get warmer as the week goes on ☀️ We catch the intercity bus to Gunsan which takes about 50 minutes, then do our usual ‘dump and run’ where we drop our bags off at the hotel before heading to our next course. We hike around 20km through Gunsan city along courses 53,54,55. Start on some trails around Cheongam Mountain before covering a bit of farmland and heading into the big city ⛰️ We have been to Gunsan before during one of our cycling trips and recall visiting the very popular Lee Sung Dang bakery, so we plan to stop by again. The place is always extremely busy, and even on a Tuesday afternoon it’s quite hectic with many people buying trays and trays of their famous buns 🥯 We continue onto course 55 which takes us along the coast and through a very cool railroad village before heading back via another bakery. As we wander to our hotel we are stopped by an Ahjussi who is so excited we can speak Korean he invites us into his sister’s restaurant for a beer, which is also the Guksu place we were planning to go for dinner. After a chat, our mate tells to wait a moment and pops out, but after waiting 10 minutes we have to ghost him so we can check into our hotel. We head back for dinner a bit later and the noodles are really good 🍜 Gunsan is massive so we take an evening stroll towards the main drag and Lotte Mart. You know you’re in a big city when the regional Hanaro Marts are replaced by giant Lotte Marts! 🏙️

Day 48: Wednesday 14 May. A big day of hiking today, completing 25.2km along courses 56, 57 & 58. Course 56 is a lovely nature trail along the beach and through a pine forest 🌲 There is a sky walk along the course but it’s currently undergoing maintenance and closed off unfortunately. Because we are trying to knock out three courses, after hitting three check points we catch a bus to the next course to save our legs 🚍 Course 57 is a lot of farmland and a bit of a mental struggle until we come across a cute cafe towards the end of the course. The area is full of old camping grounds that look like they were once very popular but now rundown and unused ⛺️ There are a few detours along course 58 due to construction along the Seawall, luckily they are after our finish point where we turn off to get the bus home. We had originally intended to stay in Seocheong but couldn’t find any accommodation so we are staying in another area called Janghang, about 10km south. The forecast has rain over the next few days so we will see how the hiking goes! ☔️

Day 49: Thuraday 15 May. We wake up to the sound of thunder and heavy rain but it eases off as the morning goes on ⛈️ We start by catching a bus and then a train to the town of Boryeong, although the train station is called Daecheon. Korean trains are so nice to catch, even the older 무궁화 trains are very comfortable 🚆 Very misty today but hopefully the rain will hold out. We hike a quick 11km along courses 61 & 62. Yesterday was a pretty long day so our legs appreciate the shorter course. The first course 61 is mostly main road so nothing exciting but course 62 takes us past fortress walls, temples and nice ocean views. It takes us about two hours to finish the courses and we have a bit over an hour until our bus arrives so we pop into a nice nearby cafe to pass the time ☕️ When we finally catch the bus we see another hiker jump onboard we had passed earlier who had yelled out hello to us. For dinner we head to a local bunsik and also the giant Emart to stock up on a few things as we will be staying in Boryeong for two nights 🌙 It will be nice to not have to change accommodation tomorrow after four straight days of catching buses to a new city each day!

Day 50: Friday 16 May. It’s forecast as 95% chance of rain today so we are a bit cautious heading out this morning 🌧️ You can feel the humidity in the air and it actually gets quite warm…20°c! Today we complete 21km along courses 59 & 60 starting with a long Seawall before heading along Daecheon Beach and it’s surrounding restaurants, hotels and cafes 🏖️ The tourist strip is surprisingly busy and the area is known for its annual Boryeong Mud Festival. We stop at a cute cafe for a break before carrying on past the Skybike ride and onto the next course which is mostly main roads 🚙 We manage to beat the rain home and decide to buy lunch and dinner from Emart to save ourselves having to head out later as it does start pouring down that evening. Tomorrow we head to Seosan where we will spend the next week 🥾