May 11

Andong City - Yeongdeok

The day dawned beautiful once again.  A few clouds floating by, and rain forecast for later today, but another super-nice day to start out.  Temp probably started about 15C, but rose into the low 30s at one point.  Much of the day was high 20s; pretty hot for this girl who just fled winter recently.  

Today was to be our biggest climbing day yet.  I did opt for the bike 'n hike option a couple of times for short stretches.  We had a lot of low double-digit climbing, which is just a little bit too steep for me to sustain............

The day started out gentle enough, with some urban riding getting us out of Andong.



At about 4 km we had a bit of a detour, and then intermittent construction continued for quite a while.  We have now left the Four Rivers Bike Path system, and are now on the regular roads over to the east coast.  Apparently we have a few hills to cross before we get there.  We crossed quite a few bridges; not sure if we were crossing rivers or lakes, but some of them looked like reservoirs.  





 Turtle monument.  Haven't a clue as to the significance.



Nice traditional building.  We saw more of these in the countryside today than on other days, but still not very many.


I saw this sign coming down one of the hills; there was a matching sign coming up the other side.  The irony was that this was one of the few signs we saw and it was on one of the least steep & shortest climbs. 


Not sure what these flags were for, but a nice little touch.  Cue sheet says there was a "weird" park on the right, but I didn't notice anything particularly odd about it.


We saw quite an extensive area where the trees were dead on the hillsides.  Not sure if it was as a result of fire or disease.  It was certainly a stark contrast to the lush hillsides we've been seeing so far. 


Agriculturally, we've moved from mostly ground crops to trees and vines.  We're in apple country!



The South Koreans seem to be very safety conscious.  Roads are painted red (either stripes or solids as the level of caution dictates).



We passed by the Cheongsong Ice Valley Climbing Worldcup Stadium.  Obviously not much action going on right now.  Even the coffee shop "coke stop" was closed.  I don't drink coffee, but I was really looking forward to a cold drink; darn!  This was at 77km; just shy of 30 to go.  Oh - and according to the forecast there was an 80% chance of rain at this time.  So glad they were wrong.






Okgyesotdae Park




Once out of apple country, the bus shelters changed.  Also - public toilets are always easy to find.




Finally - about 87km, an open coffee/cold drink cafe.  


Not sure what kind of trees we're in to now.


And finally - after one last big climb - we're in to Yeongdeok.  Our hotel is right by the water (the East Sea).  The place is well known  for crab.



A great, but tough, day.  And - a big crab dinner to reward ourselves.  Boy, oh boy - we must have had at least 15 courses.  And all were delicious.  Just about all the dishes were some type of seafood.  Good thing we're wearing spandex!





Shorter day tomorrow and then another rest day!


Stats for the Day:

Garmin:  104.6 km.  5125 feet up.  5621 feet down.  

RWGPS:  105.2 km.  1780m up.  1868m down. 


Yeongdeok

Population:  35,000

Wikipedia:  Yeongdeok is a county in South Korea.  It is well known for snow crabs.  



Comments

  1. Lynn CMay 13, 2026 at 6:49 AM

    Yikes! Look at the size of those crabs!! They look delish, though!

    ReplyDelete

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