Scooting Through Southeast Korea

The warm weather has arrived and this past weekend a group of us made the most of it.  In the process, I went off-roading on my scooter in one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.
The story starts the weekend before when two friends, Kory and Alyssa, joined a group of Korean motorists on a trip to a place north of Pohang.  They enjoyed the trip so much they decided to organize a group to go camping in the area that they had gone.  I hadn't heard about their trip (foreshadowing) but scooting and camping sounded great to me, so I joined.  Note: Kory and Alyssa have full sized dirt bikes, not scooters (more foreshadowing).  Here, actually, is a selection of the motored vehicles on the trip.

Kory's bike.  Notice the large shocks.  Perfect for rough terrain.

Lance's 450.  It's a nice bike, and not perfect for rough terrain.

Megan and Jenn's 125cc scooters.  A lot nicer than mine.  But still scooters.

My 125.  Not real pretty. I like it enough. But certainly not because it's perfect for rough terrain.

So we headed out Saturday afternoon, late as was to be expected, travelled down the highway for a ways and then turned off onto a side road.  One of the few things that Kory had mentioned before the trip was that, on the way, we'd be going up and over a mountain.  And here's where you need to start picturing how great this was.  So we are scooting through the countryside and everything is green - trees, grass, rice paddies - such a stark contrast from the city.  But even greater of a contrast was the smell.  For the first time in a long time I could smell nature clearly.  Scooting through this experience made the beauty and smell all the more vivid.  Then we head into the mountains and we start climbing, following the switch-back road higher and higher, a little worried that our scooters can handle the climb.  Little did I know what was to come (further foreshadowing).

The group

We reach the top and we cruise down through the trees and into the valley.  And this is where the surprise happens.  The concrete road stops and becomes loose gravel, which I wasn't expecting but apparently others were, so on we go.  After the first couple of minutes of cautiously trying to avoid pot-holes, washboard bumps, and larger rocks I start to think that this portion of the trip isn't temporary.  What's more, as we get further down the road, it's condition gets worse.  At some points I am going down hills, bouncing along on sizable rocks, and doing all I can just to keep my 'bike' underneath me.  I hardly noticed the beauty that we went through because my eyes were glued to the spot two feet in front of me.  And let's not forget, this is a scooter I'm riding - a scooter made for city roads - the occasional pot-hole, well ok, but not a rocky path recently hewn out of the mountain. Of course, Kory and Alyssa are having a great time, buzzing past us on their dirt bikes.
Eventually we made it through, but not without some bumps, bruises, and bitterness.  The next task was to find and set up a campsite - and there weren't a lot of options.  We had come out into a narrow valley between some sizable cliffs and most of the space in the valley was taken up by the road and a rocky, meandering river.  It was an awesome place, but not a lot of grassy areas for a couple of tents.  At first, the only flat place we could find was a rock bed beside the river.  It might have worked, but it would have made for a very lumpy sleep.  Fortunately, we met a small group of older foreigners who showed us a much better spot next to them.  Pretty soon the tents were up, we had a fire going, we were jumping in the river, and the anxiety over the trip had vanished.

The cliff beside us. The river where we swam is in that crevasse.

It was great to be camping again.  It's one of my favourite things.  I didn't sleep the best but I was lucky that there was room in someones tent for me - I had imagined myself under the stars (which might have been ok except it got really cold overnight).
I stayed for most of the next day and then decided to head home in the afternoon along with another friend on a scooter, Jenn.  Our trip home was equally as epic as the ride there.
We had all started out with full tanks of gas, happy that that would be enough to get us there.  But once we'd arrived, I soon realized that it would be hard for us to find a gas station in the secluded valley we were in.  My fuel gauge was just about on the E and I had no idea if I had any kind of reserve.  But Jenn and I headed out with high hopes that it would work out.  Of course, we were taking an alternate route home, decidedly not braving the mountain pass for a second time, but also a little unsure as to how our new route would work out.  We had gone a little ways when we came to a fork in the road with a sign pointing in the directions of places unfamiliar to us.  We asked a man if he could direct us and told him about our fuel dilemma.  He looked at our fuel gauges, winced, and communicated to us that the nearest gas station was 8 km away but he didn't think we'd make it.  We had no choice, we had to go for it.  The road took us up another mountain and the whole time I'm picturing my scooter sputtering and dieing at any moment.  We made it to the top and coasted down the other side just hoping that there would actually be a gas station in the village we approached.  There was, yay!  We filled up and headed back the way we came, pretty sure we weren't lost having come across a more helpful sign along the way.  Without the worry of running out of gas at any time and with lots of time to get home, this ride through the mountains of southeast Korea was one that I will remember for a while.
The road took us to the top of a higher mountain from which we had an awesome view of the surrounding area.  Then down into the most beautiful valley on earth.  You have to picture it because I didn't get a photo: scooting along with green mountains rising up on both sides, rice paddy after rice paddy along both sides of the road, farmers standing in their wet fields, possibly harvesting their first crop, quaint little homes here and there, a steady river running beside the road and occasionally crossing underneith, and such a wonderful smell.  It was a great moment.
I'm hopeful that there will be more adventurous trips in the future.

The view from the top of the mountain.  It reminds me of the mountains of Costa Rica.

Monday was a holiday - memorial day.  And what better way to spend it then on the beach.

And Tanya brought a feast.

Thanks for reading,
 Michael