Searching the web for weekend destinations in Korea I stumbled upon a few weblogs that described a camping trip to an uninhabited island off the west coast. The information was very sparse, especially regarding the exact whereabouts and how to organise a trip but that only made it sound even more adventureous and we snapped at the first chance and literally set sail towards Sa Seungbong-Do from Incheon.
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Category Archives: [lang_de]Reisen[/lang_de][lang_en]Trips[/lang_en]
Danyang
A little while ago Christina and I took a day trip to a town called Danyang near Chungju. Photos are already up but here’s now a little report about the trip. Continue reading
Gallery Update
There are new photos in the gallery from my recent trip to Danyang | View album
Bella Sardegna
After five months of Kimchi and Korea, my vacation was more than welcome (don’t get me wrong, though, I had and I’m still having a great time in Korea, it can just be, well, exhausting at times). Luckily Thorsten and Alex were able to join in for some climbing and it didn’t take much to convince us that Sardinia would be the perfect place to go. However the trip started with a moment of shock when we discovered that Alex’ VW leaked some oil and a mechanic advised us not to use the car as there was immediate danger of fire. As you can imagine we weren’t too impressed at gave it a shot anyway. And in order to come to the point – the car was just fine and never caught fire! | View gallery Continue reading
Back home
Unlike the previous days the sky was clear and blue this morning. A shame that I had to return to Seoul to catch my flight back home. But the trip form Sokcho to Dong-Seoul was really stunning: Leaving the houses behind there were only hills, covered with this amazing patchwork of red and green and yellow forest. And above it all the granite towers of Seoraksan. I had this Idea of asking the driver to stop for a little while but quickly dismissed the thought because a: he wouldn’t have been able to do so and b: there was no way I could have made him understand me anyway.
Only two hours later I was back in Seoul, hidden in thick mist. I dropped some postcards off at the post office and went on to Incheon International Airport where I’m preparing some blog posts that I’m going to upload later in Dubai – unlike here they have working WiFi over there.
Seoraksan National Park
From Sokcho Intercity Bus terminal I took bus number 7-1 to Seorak-Dong. This small place is the gateway to the National Park and offers accomodation and basic supply – assuming you have cash, international ATM’s don’t exist up here. I checked into Han Gang Park Motel and fell asleep after a long day. Continue reading
Northbound
Before leaving Korea for a short visit to Germany I wanted to squeeze in some travelling. It came in handy that I still had a free day due to my volunteer work last Saturday and my flight leaving late Tuesday. That basically gave me more than three days, enough time to visit Seoraksan National Park up north, supposingly the most stunning in whole Korea (North and South). Continue reading
Korea here I come!
On 1st September I boarded the aircraft at Zurich Airport, heading for Incheon International Airport in Korea, stopping in Dubai. Roughly 15 hours aboard the plane, followed by a three hours Bus ride to Chungju and another five minutes by taxi. Final destination: Grand Hotel Chungju. That was the plan, and despite some communication issues it worked quite well – there I went straight to bed just before midnight, exhausted but excited. Continue reading
Hervey Bay – Byron Bay – Brisbane – Sydney
When we’d got the van in Cairns there had only been a three seater available. So we gave Karin a lift down to Brisbane, stopping at Rainbow Beach and Tin Can Bay on the way where we watched some dolphins having breakfast at the beach. We spent one night in Brisbane in a dark back alley and caught up with the Belgians from Fraser Island before driving on to Byron Bay the next day. A relaxed little town with a nice atmosphere. We also visitied Nimbin, a town full of hippies and drug dealers. Quite a trip! We almost got totally lost on windy roads through dark forest. But we eventually managed to arrive at this quite different place …
The next day we dropped the car off in Brisbane and caught a plain to Sydney – or we rather tried I should say. First the inbound flight was late and then the whole airport ceased operation due to heavy thunderstorms – I wonder how they’d survive snow!
But we made it to Sydney in the end and met my friend Tom who let us stay at his place in Bondi Beach for a night. After that we moved to a hostel nearby where we lucky enough to find two beds – really every place is fully booked around this time of the year!
One day I went climbing in the blue Mountains, where I met up with a local for the day. And while Claudia stayed in Sydney I took a train down to Melbourne to prepare my journey back to Germany …
Fraser Island via Town of 1770 and Agnes Water
A very short night in Airlie Beach was followed by a very long drive to Turkey Beach near the Town of 1770 (named after the year James Cook set foot on land – how inventive!). On the way we actually had to stop at the side of the road for a bit because of heavy hail and rain.
Town of 1770 and Agnes Water are two little towns with a beach and a backpackers – that’s pretty much it. The waves are rather moderate and attract many first-time surfers. Claudia gave it a go, too, while I went for a swim and took some action shots. Between there and Hervey Bay lies Bundaberg, famous for rum. We tried to visit a turtle tour where you can watch turtles crawl up the beach, laying their eggs and then crawl back into the sea. But it would have taken too long so we drove on to Hervey Bay, departure point for our Fraser Island trip.
At 7am we had to attend the briefing and 30 people were split into three groups. We were in a group with Karin who we knew already from the Whitsundays and then there were the Belgian squad Jorn, Stijn, Peter and Mattias; Catherine from England and Eimear and Stephen from Ireland.
After a quick shopping tour the barge brought us to the worlds largest sand island! I made the start to drive along sandy tracks and through deep potholes, trying not to make the passangers sea sick. It rained most of the day but that didn’t really bother us too much when we stopped at Central Station for a short walk through the rainforest and Lake Wabby one of the many perched lakes of the island. When we hit the east coast we set up camp and had a big BBQ dinner. An amazing sunset welcomed us and promised better weather for the next day. Later that night a dingo had a closer look at the tents and caused a rush of people equipped with cameras running down to the beach, hoping to get a good shot of the wild dog. Not sure if anyone was actually successful…
I spent the night on the roof of our car and woke up with the rising sun at 4.30am (bloody Queensland doesn’t have daylight saving time!) but luckily managed to get some more sleep before breakfast at 7am. We had to start driving up 72 Mile Beach around 8 to catch the few hours before and after low tide. Just when we were about to leave, we were lucky to see another dingo walk right up to the cars and pose for some shots!
Driving on the beach was pretty cool! Some parts allowed to go 80kph whereas in others I had to slow down to get across little wash-outs and creeks. We stopped at Indian Head to walk up to the lookout and enjoy the view before chilling at Champagne Pools for quite a while.
On the way back we stopped at the Pinnacles and the Maheno wreck and put up camp near Ellis Creek.
On our last day on Fraser we headed inland again to Lake Mckenzie Amazing! Crystal-clear water, white sand … simply stunning! Probably my personal highlight of the trip although the whole island is just unbelievably awesome. And with ‘the best group ever’ it was probably one of ‘the best trips ever’!
