I brunched, then visited a stone art garden. After that, I went to an Oreum on part of the Jeju Olle Trail. This was a trip in two parts; solo for three days, then four days with Romana.

Day 2 of 7 winter days on Jeju

After a restless sleep, I got up and went to the roof of the hostel to check out the daytime view; lots of buildings but was surprised to see a snow covered Hallasan in the distance with a toupee of white cloud! You could also see the trees in the valley of where Cheonjiyeon falls are, but no view of the falls of course.

I went to Jenny’s Bread cafe nearby for a breakfast of pasta and coffee; pretty good. I needed a plan so opted for The Natural Stone Art Museum, some hiking along part of the Jeju Olle Trail, and up an oreum (volcanic vent).

The Natural Stone Art Museum was deserted and very pleasant. It was a garden of mandarin and citron trees leading to a trail of pretty rock gardens to a small hill with views to Hallasan in the distance. There was also accommodation there.

Next , I drove to part of the Jeju Olle Trail; this is a trail that goes around the island divided into 27 sections. There are many blogs about it and people do it randomly, bit by bit (me), in chunks, or the whole thing in one go! You can camp along it or stay at hostels etc. I’ve walked a very small length of it on my last trip here. This part of the trail is Olle Trail 7-1 (올레7-1코스) and runs past some mandarin farms and over Gogeunsan oreum (고근산 오름). In the surprisingly pleasant weather (did I mention it’s December?) the views over the black volcanic-rock walls and mandarin trees to Hallasan in the distance were lovely… and were not able to be captured in way I wanted on my phone.

After walking part of the trail, I headed back to the car noting a few lunch stops on the way. I drove back to a place (서대감 흑돼지) offering a 7,000 won buffet; it was good. There was more news on my friend who had passed on Monday and was informed of the funeral in Seoul… this would be a two-and-a-half-day wake followed by a funeral, so I decided to leave tomorrow.

I drove a short way to another part of the Olle Trail that would go over Gogeunsan oreum and parked up. Getting up the oreum was easy enough and when looking back, there were fantastic, un-obscured views of Hallasan. Once at the top, the views looked from the Hallasan mountain down to the sea and reminded me of an Airbnb I stayed at with my family after I got married in 2018.

I saw the trail led to Eongtto Falls (엉또폭포), so walked back to the car and drove to the west side (lazy? Me? How dare you…). There I found the river downstream from the falls and another mandarin farm. The falls were dry, but the sheer rock cliffs were spectacular and viewable up a set of stairs that led to the top of the mandarin orchard (I end up coming back here with Romana by accident! I’ll post about it with better photos in another post).

After returning to the hostel and having a quick rest, I headed out again to find some food after calling home to Romana and telling her I’d be coming back to Seoul earlier than expected. I walked to a favourite Seogwipo bar, Goofy Foot Surf Bar, feeling the need for more burger and some Magpie pale ale. They didn’t disappoint!

Click the ‘door’ icon on the top left of the map to open the list of places for this trip: