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Published: December 9th 2012
27-29
thNovember 2012
Unless I go off an a tangent, this will be a quick blog. We didn't spend long in the Sokcho area and the weather was bad the one day we had to explore the national park. The only bad weather day we've had here so far!
The scenery from Andong to Sokcho was stunning; mountains dusted with snow along with the rivers and valleys we've seen elsewhere, but the bus ride was marred by a grumpy bus driver. We had the front seats which we were happy about initially as it gave us more of a view out the front. That was before the driver started hassling us for the “noise” Samara was making. Every time she started talking or singing (she is into singing twinkle twinkle little star big time at the moment!) he would turn round and tell us to be quiet. And its not like she was shouting or anything, she really wasn't that loud at all. I guess it was interfering with his tinny music then later his news channel on the big tv. Buses here don't play movies, they tune into some tv station and just play that, and lose it each time we
go through a tunnel, which is pretty often.
Anyway, there aren't a lot of accommodation options around the Intercity bus station. We passed a few hotels on the way in but didn't want to go back to find them. Colin and Samara went to check out some motels while Katrina and I looked after the baggage (and fended off cheek grabbers and hair rufflers). Most of the ones they looked at were cheap and small, cleanish but run down. The best of the ones they looked at was half the price of the hotel in Andong but the room was half the size. It was clean enough but a bit run down. There was only a double bed in it, but the lady running the place was nice and gave us a Korean style mattress and duvet for the floor for Samara without us asking. The room had the usual underfloor heating (great invention!) but it only worked in places – you either had cold feet or the floor was too hot to stand on! Luckily the hottest parts were under where we put Samara's mattress so she was nice and warm and we could walk on the floor.
The
first afternoon we just went for a wander round part of Sokcho. We were slowly heading for a small ferry we read about in the guidebook, but spent too long in the market and never made it. We're not sure if it was still there as a new bridge had been built about where it was, though the ferry was foot passenger only. The market was the usual mix of clothes, homewares and food, with loads more fish than elsewhere as Sokcho is a big fishing port. We grabbed a variety of snack food from the market and took it back to the room for dinner
The next morning, our only full day there, was the only day in the two weeks that the weather was bad. It was very cloudy and windy when we got up, and as we got closer to the Seoraksan NP it got worse. Seoraksan roughly translates to Snow-cragged Mountains, and there was certainly a good dusting of snow on the peaks already. The park is approx 40km square and is criss crossed with hiking trails. We'd intended to go up in the cable car and do some walking up there, but it was closed
due to the high winds.
Instead we followed the advice of a park ranger type guy and went past the big buddha statute and took the left path. For a while we wondered what kind of hike we were going on as the path was wide and concreted, not quite what we were expecting, but after a while we crossed a river and it turned into a track of stone, mud and rocks. The path / track roughly followed a river up into the hills. After a while the wind eased and so it got a little warmer. If we had kept on walking, we would have reached a cave carved into the hill and a huge boulder, then further along and increasingly steep trail a series of metal stairways and bridges to reach the summit of Ulsanbawi, a 873m granite crag. But we turned back.
As we walked back, we were expecting the wind to pick up again, but it didn't, and when we got back to the cable car, we found it had been opened as the wind had died right down. We took the risk of going up – the warning was that if the wind picked
up we'd have to walk down and we didn't fancy that!
There were a few people going up but the cable car was far from crowded. Samara was totally unfazed by swinging high in the air and enjoyed looking out the windows. The upper station couldn’t have been open long as it was still pretty cold inside, outside was even colder. I don't think we would have walked far had we gone up earlier! There was still some wind and it was bitterly cold. There was snow on the ground around the station, and no one was going far. We didn't stop up there for long, we wanted to sit and have something to eat, and although there was a small cafe there, it was just too cold inside. The views were impressive in the low cloud and snow/rain flurries, so they would be spectacular in good weather. We could see Sokcho reasonably clearly, it looked like it was under a break in the clouds and was nice and sunny down there. The landscape surrounding the cable car terminal was craggy and steep, most of the trees bare with a few pine trees to add a splash of colour to
the otherwise grey landscape.
Back in Sokcho we had time to book a bus for Seoul the following morning and find something to eat. We got a little lazy and found some pot noodles to have back at the motel. Samara has decided she is keen on noodles!
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