It's a bit premature, but reaching Yangsan already feels like finishing the walk. The final stretch lies before me, and on Monday, I'll wake up around 4 a.m. and walk the remaining 28.8 kilometers to the Nakdong River Estuary Barrage (낙동강 하구둑), the official endpoint of the Four Rivers bike path. I cheated twice this time around both to avoid camping and to follow a fortuitous shortcut to Choongju, and this means the total distance I will have walked won't be the official 633 km: it'll be more like 615 km.
I didn't sleep that well last night, despite the lack of marauding mosquitoes. As a result, I again left the yeogwan a little late, stepping out the door at 6:50 a.m. The walk itself was magnificent, albeit brief compared to my longer walks: the terrain was relatively flat, the scenery was achingly beautiful, and the weather was sunny and calm, contrasting with the previous day's bluster. One problem I have with bright, sunny days, though, is that they make it hard to take decent photos with my cell-phone camera: the camera registers bright areas and exaggerates the shadows in the dim areas. This is true even when I'm pointing the camera decidedly away from the sun. Ideally, I should run my pics through Photoshop to remove the effects of glare/haze, but I don't have that luxury while on the trail, so my apologies for the glut of imperfect pictures. (I'm aware there's free online photo-editing software, but you're not going to persuade me to experience that particular pain in the ass while using a cell phone.)
I actually feel robust enough to finish out the trek tomorrow, but stopping for two nights at Yangsan is now a kind of tradition. That said, my feet hurt worse today than they did a couple days ago, when I was walking to Hanam-eup and contemplating that other walking dude who seemed to be in a lot of pain. I also broke protocol and lanced my huge blister this evening; it was ridiculously large by the time I arrived at the Bliss Hotel today. (I could see the blister bulging out through my thick sock.) I had another large blister quietly burst on me a couple weeks ago; the burst blister required no further attention, so I think I can get away with not treating this lanced blister with anything more than a thorough foot-washing, which I've now done.
Am still mulling over what to do on Monday. The easy thing to do would be to forgo the pizza celebration and just cab it to Busan Station after I arrive at the walk's endpoint; I can eat at a decent resto in that neighborhood, and the Busaninn yeogwan is right there. I can also stroll over to the station from the yeogwan to buy a KTX ticket for the following day. Skipping out on pizza would mean not visiting the beach at Gwangalli, where I've traditionally walked down to the waves in order to symbolically touch the ocean as my own official way of ending the walk. But do I need to do this? I didn't touch the ocean when I started out in Incheon; the ocean wasn't accessible from the trail's starting point. Same goes for the endpoint, which allows you a tantalizing view of the ocean as you're crossing the barrage but doesn't allow you down close to the water. Touching the ocean at the end, but not at the beginning, seems... asymmetrical. I'm not attached to the tradition.
At the same time, my inner glutton wants a goddamn pizza as a condign reward for a job well done. Could I settle for something less grandiose as a capper to this journey? Doubtful. Maybe there's a decent pizzeria near Busan Station. I'll have to check. I seem to recall that that neighborhood has no shortage of restos. I might get lucky.
The walk to Yangsan, despite the annoying Saturday crowd of fair-weather bikers (many of whom loved to stray into my pedestrian lane because fuck you), got me all sentimental. This will be my last walk along the Four Rivers path for a while. I'm already thinking about next year, when I plan to walk the east-coast path that goes roughly from Gangneung to Busan. This means starting from square one again in terms of planning and research, but that's kind of exciting. The east-coast path is 720 km long, making it only slightly shorter than the Camino francés (780 km, depending on how it's measured and what your starting point is). Given that my buddy Mike wants to walk one of the nine caminos when we turn 60, there's no time like the present to start a-practicing.
The computer here at the Bliss Hotel isn't working, which is par for the course, but the WiFi is nice and strong, so I'll do a pic dump of some of today's images below, then I'll slap some pics of yesterday's walk up on yesterday's post (Day 26, Leg 20). Just come back periodically to check for updates.
Just a sample of the 160-some pics I took today.
PHOTO ESSAY:
1 comment:
Now, that looks like my kind of trail! Not too long and plenty to see. Enjoy your rest time.
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