DAY 3 OF 4-DAY Geoje ROAD TRIP

Today took me on a short ferry trip to a quiet, scenic island south of Geoje called Bijindo (비진도). I hiked the whole island, including a ‘mountain’, and encountered lots of wild(?) black goats! It was a pretty spectacular place even though nothing seemed to be open!

It was a nice 40-minute drive from Geoje to Tongyeong harbour. I then searched for a place to buy food and coffee for breakfast and a picnic. Paris Baguette ftw! The ferry ticket was easy enough to get, even though the ticket place was quite busy. The boat too wasn’t packed and I got a space to sit out on the deck under the tarp sun-cover. The weather was perfectly sunny and breezy and getting to the Bijindo took about 40 minutes.

We made two stops at Bijindo at the two small villages there; the second stop was the beach stop. The beach is a strip of land joining the two hills of the island, making this a very distinctive island. Time to explore!

The maps at the harbour entrance showed the village the the north and a hike on this side of the island. I headed north along the beach to see what I could see. There were a few buildings at the beach including some restaurants, but these were all closed. The sand on the beach was quite beaten up and covered with a bit of sea trash so I must have arrived before the yearly pre-holiday-season clean-up. The sea looked fantastic and inviting. I’ll go in next time!

I explored the other side of the beach where there were more residential buildings and places to eat and stay; again, all closed. This village is larger than it first appears. Heading north from the east side of the beach takes you up a road that goes past what is probably the main vacation accommodation on the island called something like The Sea Pension. A few of the rundown buildings seemed abandoned…I wonder how much they’d cost… Past these and onto the northern hill, I looked back at my first elevated view of the beach.

It took about twenty minutes to walk the single road to the other small harbour village… talk about a sleepy town! It was mainly residential, with one noodle/coffee shop (closed), a communal pavilion, and a closed (down?) school. There was also lots of garlic growing in the farmland on the hills, and drying on the streets; that would explain what I though was the smell of onions! This place also had more signs of life; people in their yards, people working in the hills, and a few pedestrians going about their business. Everyone was older than me and didn’t pay me much attention.

This part of the island featured a lot of mural too and was quite picturesque. I had my lunch at the pavilion before making my way back south to hike the island’s mountain.

As mentioned in my last post, the green hills of this region are far more challenging than they appear! It was a wooded, shady hill and pretty much straight up some rocky steps. I had two hours until the last ferry so I hoofed it somewhat, and got very sweaty in no time. The view was…hidden, but fortunately the other side going down proved far more scenic and interesting.

There were a lot of view points looking west and the rock formations on the coast line were spectacular. One of the highlights was running into a three separate groups of black goats, just randomly wandering around. They wanted to get as far away from me as possible so I didn’t get any photos, but I did get a couple of videos as I approached them (to be uploaded later). The further I got back towards the harbour, the more signs of life there were in the form of stone and brick dwellings in the hills, although I didn’t see a soul. I wonder who stays all the way up here?

Almost at the harbour, I came across the island’s only car, a white Korando SUV with a pallet on the bonnet, and an older couple (the owners?) tending a garlic crop nearby.

Back at the beach, I went to the treeline and sat for a bit while waiting for the ferry. What a lovely little island; I’d love to return, perhaps with a tent as I hear that camping is possible here (and actually, a friend of mine camped here a few months later).

Back on Tongyeong, I got dinner near the harbour before it got dark (I hate driving in the dark…my eyes…); grilled fish with a bunch of side dishes. The woman running the place wanted to add some more, free fish which was super kind, but I was so stuffed, I just couldn’t, so I made an excuse along the lines of “I need to move my car right now, but thank you so much!”

The drive back was also lovely, and I grabbed a few cold beers to drink outside my room at the hostel. All in all, a fantastic day at a lovely, sleepy hidden’ island.

Map of all the places I visited while on Geoje: