Day 20, Leg 17

I'm working with spotty Wi-Fi here at Weonang Park Jang Motel. My room is okay for W30,000 a night, but there's no electric socket next to my bed, so I can't blog and recharge my battery at the same time. First-world problems, right? Granted, by motelling my way down to Busan, I haven't exactly been roughing it.

That's about to change, though, as I have two days in a row of camping ahead of me starting tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to walking 33 km in possible rain, then camping, then walking another 18 km the next day and doing it again. I'm also not looking forward to the walk to Namji-eup the morning after the second night of camping: based on my 2017 blog, that's the day when I encounter two of my three big hills plus a slew of small-but-nasty hills. I might encounter my first big hill, the one next to Mushim-sa, either tomorrow or the day after. Things smooth out for the rest of the walk after Namji. I had forgotten that the most difficult days of the Nakdong River section of the trek were all concentrated together. Maybe that's for the best: the torture won't be dragged out.

I had a couple steep hills today upon leaving Daegu, but nothing major or especially challenging. As with most of the post-Saejae walk up to now, the terrain has been mostly flat. Today was also cloudy and therefore mercifully cool; I broke out my hat maybe twice, but was otherwise happy not to have to wear it.

More people reacted to my tee design, although I realized about a week ago that I colored the Saejae portion of the trail wrong: it should actually be from Chungju to Sangju. Someone did indeed purchase a shirt or two; I hope that person will email me a mailing address so I can send corrected tee shirts to him/her for free as an apology.

I'm continuing to self-medicate rather aggressively, and this is definitely helping with the foot pain. No nosebleeds or butt-bleeds yet, so I don't think I'll be dying of an overdose anytime soon. The Leukotape on my right pinky toe is still holding firm, but I'm terrified to see what my toe will look like when I finally peel the tape off.

While I'm charging my power pack and my three batteries, I'm morbidly curious as to whether that'll be enough to get me through two days of camping. I might actually keep my phone off for large chunks of tomorrow's hike, even though that means my pedometer won't be able to count my steps correctly. Speaking of pedometers, here are my stats for today:

And some other pics from today:

Dalseong Dam:

So as you see, I'm back at the Weonang Park Jang Motel. I had wanted to try the Gangbyeon Jang Motel down the road a ways, but that place ended up being closed, so I had to backtrack nearly a kilometer to find my current digs. I got a W5000 discount on my night's stay, but W30,000 is nevertheless W5000 more than what I'd paid two years ago. Inflation, I suppose.

So I might be partially or wholly incommunicado for the next two days while I'm out in nature. Once I'm safely in Namji-eup, I'll have plenty to write about, I'm sure. Then again, if it turns out that I have sufficient battery power, I might blog while camping. We'll see.

Photo essay: