Instead of rewriting my first "route in a nutshell" post, I've written up a spreadsheet on Google Docs that I'm sharing with you here. Click on the link and feel free to peruse the spreadsheet. If you see any mistakes on it, please let me know. If you can't read Korean but can read a map, you can copy-and-paste the place names listed on my spreadsheet in Naver Map, and you'll see what the location is. Zoom in and out to get your bearings, if necessary; as when reading any map, anchor yourself by noting prominent geographical features.
The column headings on my walk-route spreadsheet ought to be fairly straightforward, but here's an explanation just in case:
DATE: this refers to the date on which I'll be doing a given leg from Point A to Point B.
DAY: this is an ordinal number referring to the "how-manyeth" day of the walk this is.
LEG: this refers to the "how-manyeth" leg of the walk this is. "Day" and "leg" will diverge when I stay anywhere for more than a single night.
START: this refers to the name of the starting point of a given leg.
FINISH: this refers to the name of the endpoint of a given leg.
DISTANCE (mi.): this refers to the approximate distance, in miles, of a given leg.
DISTANCE (km): this refers to the approximate distance, in kilometers, of a given leg.
LODGING: this gives you an idea of what my accommodations will be at the end of a given day's walking. Note the tiny yellow flags in the upper-right corners of the cells in this column. If you hover your cursor over a flagged cell, you'll see a comment giving detailed information about where I'll be staying. In cases where there is a plethora of hotels/inns, I haven't listed specific accommodations, but for those areas where accommodations are sparse, I've listed specific info about where I'll be staying. Specific digs are listed for Days 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, and 16. I'll be calling ahead to these places to make sure I have a bed to sleep in. Note, too, my camping days went down from nine to only four: a closer look at Naver Maps showed more inns, guest houses, and pensions than I had thought were there.
PASSING ___ ALONG THE WAY: on some legs, I'll be passing by certification centers on my way to the daily endpoint. I'll be stopping by those centers, mid-walk, and getting my Moleskine stamped (I'm not going to shell out W5,000 for a silly bike-path passport when I've already got a perfectly usable book with blank pages in it).
H2O RATING: this refers to the availability of water along the trail, as explained before.
PATH NAME: the trail sections that I'll be walking are the Han River, the Namhan River, the Saejae, and the Nakdong River. When I made this spreadsheet, I was glad to see that I'd be on the Saejae portion for only four days out of twenty-three. If I'm going to get hit by a car, it's most likely going to happen on the Saejae. I'd like to minimize my time there.
MEAL: per my previous post, I've transferred my meal information to the chart. Because I ended up redoing a leg or two, however, the meal schedule shown on the spreadsheet is slightly different from what you saw in my post.
Bizarrely, the mileage changed slightly when I re-checked the leg-length numbers today, so any figures that you see are approximate at best. Assume an error margin of ±2-3 km.
If people are going to be meeting me in Busan when I'm done with my walk, it's likely that I'll be getting a ride back up to Seoul with someone instead of lounging in a hotel. I have mixed feelings about that. I'd actually like to have some time alone, in a more or less comfy space that isn't my own apartment, just to breathe the sea air and savor my victory (assuming, of course, that I do manage to finish this walk!). But I know it'd be churlish for me to tell everyone simply to go home after they had made the effort to drive all the way to the other end of South Korea to see me. I'll have to think about what I plan to do. Maybe I'll just tell people not to bother coming down to meet me...? We'll see.
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