We left our camp without coffee and with my legs and arms burnt to a crisp. A little further down the cycling road from where we camped there were more developed campsites along the river and an amusement park as well. However, it looked like this was closed as well. It was a nice river ride up to the next booth for our next stamp. There was a steep climb and descent section full of bump stops that we had to carefully work our way down a little after the Gangcheon Certification Center.
We went through a pretty cool section which was Gangcheonseom Park, it is an island with a bunch of campsites and the roads are unpaved which was a cool change from riding on pavement with lines most of the time. There was a bit of climb after that and then a beautiful crossing over a tall bridge crossing a deep river gorge of the Seomgang. There were a group of old people cleaning the side of the road as we pushed our way up the hill. We missed a turn that was supposed to send us into this river gorge and continued on which led us into a small village full of trucks and a narrow shoulder which sucked but the detour wasn't too bad. We had to turn around and backtrack back uphill and then we headed down into the river gorge. We took a quick break here before continuing down the river gorge. We took another break a little further down at a small park and finally tried out the exercise machines found all over Korea's park. The ride from here on out got pretty remote as there were almost no places to stop for drinks and snacks. It was also starting to get pretty hot. Luckily there was a tiny tiny shop before a big climb that had drinks and snacks. It was run by an old lady and it was just a room inside her house stocked up with stuff. We proceeded up the long climb as we were passed by a young Korean couple on road bikes. We headed over and into a flat section through some farms and back towards the river. We stopped at a small roadside stop called the Solvang Cafe for some much needed rest and caffeine. It was quite interesting to stop at a place named after a town in California. I quietly wondered if the owner had been there or not. There were many nice paintings that the owner lady painted, I was quite impressed with her work. Sally got a cream danish that tasted questionable but she chowed it down without complaint. We also noticed that there was a dog soup restaurant behind us but we weren't quite ready to get that adventurous.
After a much needed rest we crossed a bridge and circled around an island with an air force base in the middle. There were planes taking off pretty frequently right over our heads. It looked as if they were flying right out of the mountain, I would hate living around here though. We passed a pay fishing lake on the way around the island and then up a little climb through villages before ending up on the other side. We then crossed over Mokhaeng bridge to Chungju City. I was getting confused here because we had gotten off course although we ended up where we needed to be. You'll realize that there are many alternate routes when doing this ride, but you just have to use common sense and look at the map to see where you need to be. In Chungju, we stopped at a market to pick up some sustenance and then proceeded back towards the river road. We passed some sort of amusement park before arriving to our next stamp booth Chungju Tangeumdae.
Another issue we ran into a few times was detours from construction. We had to take a quick detour as they were working on the bridge we were supposed to cross. We had to go a little further down the way and cross another bridge to get back on the cycling road. As we left Chungju City behind it got more rural as the afternoon was coming to an end. We had reached our limit for the day as we broke 100km. We found a yurt based campsite along a river which was gorgeous and there was also a restaurant in the back. We decided to try this place out and it was a good decision because the food was amazing...it was mostly vegetarian based with soy being the main theme. We had fermented soy soup which tasted like natto beans, soy cold noodles and the hamburger patty along with a bowl of rice. After a nice dinner, we started looking at squat camping options. Tori pointed out a spot underneath a gate which kind of freaked me out so I vetoed it. We continued through a small farming village as the day got dark. We finally decided to camp a little ways up a hill on an old farming road...I was still sketched out but decided that Tori had far more experience in finding stealthy campsites. I heard dogs barking from the village below and it had me nervous but eventually knocked out dirty.
