Tag Archives: Hiking

Exploration

Gyeongju trail hike

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I am currently in Korea and although I am now back in Seoul, I did however manage to get a lot of exploring in and a hike through Gyeongju National Park.

I made it to the top, although it was on the short side, it’s the climb that hit the hardest with over 1,400 ft elevation.

It had rained all day, the day before but luckily enough it had mostly dried out. Although there were a few areas of dodgy footing, it wasn’t too bad.

I am not the tallest person, so my step at some points, I did struggle. But I am thankful I am still in good health.

The group I was with funny enough all seemed to be in their sixties and I was the youngest there. I had thought picking this climb I might have been with a slightly younger crowd. And three turned back less than half way through, so it was just five of us with the guide.

On the top, the funny thing is that there was a post box, where there are free post cards to send anywhere in the world for free. So I wrote one to my brother and family. Will find out if they get it or not!!

Not far from the top was a small Buddhist temple.
Made it for the view.
Exploration

Climbing La Concha (Marbella, Spain)

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I see the mountain (La Concha translates to The Shell) from the apartment every year I go to Spain, rising high in the background with a superimposed look, but it’s very real.

I was driven over to a place which is also a national park meeting a friend of my brothers called Alex.

Straight out of the car park we began our walk down the road to an olive grove, through a woodland and up through a few rocks to our first sign-post. I was already feeling it then! I am clearly not as fit as I should be.

At the same time I was running the Nike fitness app on my phone so I could record my stats going up. This was annoying for me because she kept saying “workout paused!” And “resuming workout!”.

Up we went and I was making sure I had careful footing as there seemed to be a lot of loose rock. I hear Alex up ahead, “Come on this is easy” my reply was “maybe to you but this is alien terrain to me!”.

We stopped for a break half way up.


We carried on to the top, passing three points which were a bit more challenging hence they added chains to the mountain side to assist you. At the top I turned off my Nike app recording 6.5KM it said I had climbed an elevation of 546 metres and had only burned 368 calories. I don’t know how accurate the app was but I turned it off at that point. Knowing I had to walk back the way we came meant that’s doubling the stats!! A fair bit easier but it was still hard work.