Olle 10
This is the fifth in my Olle Series of walk reports, having previously done trails 6, 7, 9 and 14 - 1. I have also done the second half of Olle 8. The previous walk was on a fine day with just a slight breeze. Both the route and the weather was conducive to photographing wildlife. Today, I turned my camera to the crashing waves, monuments and cultural aspects.
20 October 2024
The start was easy to find as it was where I had finished my previous walk. I am relatively familiar with this stretch of coast as it is relatively near to my apartment and I have headed down to Hwasan with a telephoto lens photographing ospreys and cormorants among other things. There is also a Buddhist temple that I visited at Songak-san.
I was careful to use the correct stamp on my Olle Passport, that is the one on the right for Olle 10 and not the one on the left for Olle 9. The route passes along the road and it would certainly be better to follow the top of the Hwasan Golden Beach. I checked out the floating crane which I had photographed the previous week but with the afternoon sun behind it. There were several people camping on or near the beach and this seems to be tolerated, even though it is within the town. It is now the end of the tourist season so when I reached the restaurant with cold flowing water for your feet, it was closed for the winter. I think this is a great idea and maybe I will visit it next summer.
At the far end of the beach, the route rises up through trees on the right, using steps and rung boards at about 40°. As usual, the trail was well marked with blue and orange ribbons and arrows. Blue is for the forward route and orange for the reverse route. There were other coloured ribbons for other local trails, but I have become used to picking out the blue and red.
The route drops down to Sagye-ri, a fishing port that I have visited on my bike. The route descends passing the Hamel monument. Hamel was a shipwrecked Dutch sailor who was held in Korea for 13 years, from 1653 to 1666, before escaping to Japan. There, he wrote the earliest first-hand account of a Westerner in Korea, "Hamel's Journal and a Description of the Kingdom of Korea, 1653–1666" which was subsequently published in the Netherlands in 1668. In recent years, Hamel has become a means and symbol of cultural and economic exchange between the Netherlands and South Korea. A number of monuments exist to him in both countries.
I continued past tourist shops selling souvenirs, t-shirts and sun hats. There were several small cafes with coconuts outside. I assume that these are simply for show and they drill a hole in a fresh coconut. I bought a Jejy tangerine sorbet (not creamy enough to be called ice cream). Shortly after photographing it and having a few licks, the pressure of my tongue knocked it off the cone and it went splat on the ground!
I continued past tourist shops selling souvenirs, t-shirts and sun hats. There were several small cafes with coconuts outside. I assume that these are simply for show and they drill a hole in a fresh coconut. I bought a Jejy tangerine sorbet (not creamy enough to be called ice cream). Shortly after photographing it and having a few licks, the pressure of my tongue knocked it off the cone and it went splat on the ground!
Continuing past the harbour there is a sculpture of three women, two of which are haeyneo, who go diving 10m under the sea to gather shellfish, such as abalone or sea urchins. For the next 6 km, I photographed lots of waves, though it was difficult holding the camera steady in the buffeting winds.
I came across a small shelter on an island in the road. A large group were just leaving, so I stopped for lunch, which consisted to two slices of pizza from the previous evening's takeaway. Then past more haeyneo before heading uphill and reaching a well-defined edge through trees which later joins a much wider matted path making for very comfortable, cushioned walking as I headed back down to a road.
The next section is perhaps the most interesting with both the remains of Japanese fortifications and memorials to 252 local people killed by the police and secretly buried, on the basis of suspicion of communist sympathies.
Immediately after the North Korean invasion of South Korea, the South Korean military ordered the "preemptive apprehension" of suspected leftists nationwide. Thousands were detained on Jeju and then sorted into four groups, labeled A, B, C and D, based on the perceived security risks each posed. On August 30, 1950, a written order by a senior intelligence officer in the South Korean Navy instructed Jeju's police to "execute all those in groups C and D by firing squad no later than September 6."
Sadly, this is just one of many sites and the total number of deaths across the island runs into tens of thousands.
Immediately after the North Korean invasion of South Korea, the South Korean military ordered the "preemptive apprehension" of suspected leftists nationwide. Thousands were detained on Jeju and then sorted into four groups, labeled A, B, C and D, based on the perceived security risks each posed. On August 30, 1950, a written order by a senior intelligence officer in the South Korean Navy instructed Jeju's police to "execute all those in groups C and D by firing squad no later than September 6."
Sadly, this is just one of many sites and the total number of deaths across the island runs into tens of thousands.
After reaching the "half-way" stamp, the route continues through farmland with fields of cabbages and other vegetables before reaching the tourist office at Hamo-ri. The fruit are Pittosporum tobira or Japanese cheese wood.
