Jeju Olle hike, Korea day 2

#Jeju #JejuOlle

trip report by site editor Rick McCharles

Day 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | (routes 1→ 6 = 106km)

I did this section solo, starting very early morning. There wasn’t much of a sunrise over Sunrise Peak.

We’ve categorized this a coastal trail as it more often than not stays near the shoreline, moving inland to visit highlights.

Most walk in the normal direction, colour coded Blue. But if you wanted to meet more people, there’s no reason not to walk it backwards, following the Orange signage.

The world “Olle” comes from an old local dialect of Korean. It can be translated as “a very narrow path from house to the closest road”.

The philosophy of the trail builders was to find existing, sometimes disused, pathways less than 1m wide. And to rejuvenate them.

That’s the ideal. In reality, the need to keep the route close to buses and toilets results in paved surfaces perhaps 70% of the route. My feet were bruised and sore after 100km.

Still, there’s rarely much traffic. Jeju island is ideal for road biking though that’s not yet caught on. i did see perhaps a couple dozen recreational mountain bikers over the week I was there.

There’s no official policy regarding cycling the Jeju Olle. But organizers will try to discourage it. (They can’t ban bikes as most of the trail is on public roadways.)

Shout out to the many volunteers at the Walking Festival. It was a great pleasure to arrive at each tent to get my passport stamped, get water, and recharge my enthusiasm.

Traditional stone figures are common on Jeju. … Next time I’m going to learn the significance of each.