Early in the morning of 26 May 2007, the Rotten Dead set out for Miryang Dam and the Cheondgo Wine Tunnel.

From the Dongnae subway station, we rode due west through Mandeok Tunnel and into Gupo. At Gupo, we turned north onto Highway 35 and proceeded to the Hopo subway station. From there, we turned left and headed northwest parallel to the railroad tracks toward Mulgeum and Wondong villages.

Along the way, we stopped for a very brief rest in a tiny village and snapped a few pictures.

Soon it was time to mount up and continue the ride

We continued riding northwest through a big dip in the road, straight for a little while, and then into a second big dip in the road. At the bottom of the second dip, we turned right under the train tracks and rode through Mulgeum Village. On the far side of Mulgeum Village, we turned left onto road 1022 and followed in on into Wondong Village.

Approximately 1kilometer past Wondong Village, we driftedright at a fork in the road north onto Road 69. We followed Road 69 through the mountains and up and over a steep mountain. On the back side of the steep mountain is a hairpin turn and a sort of intersection with two small stores that serve as a rest stop and the intersection of roads 69 and 1051.

We stopped at one of the stores to rest for a bit and to have a drink of water. After our short rest, we turned left and rode northwest on 1051 toward the dam.

We followed the road along the cliffs above the dam.

We continued on Road 1051 until it ended in a “T” intersection. We then turned left onto Road 1007. Eventually, 1077 met with Highway 24. We turned left on Highway 24 and rode into Miryang. On the ouskirts if Miryang, we turned right onto Highway 25 and rode straigt through Cheongdo toward Kyoungsan.Approximately 15 or so kilometers outside of Kyoungsan and just before going up and over the final mountain before Kyoungsan, there is a redbrick church on the left side of the road and little white sign saying “Wine Tunnel.” We turned left at the sign and rode up to the wine tunnel.

The wine tunnel provides a cool escape from the outside heat. The tunnel was used during the Japanese occupationand resistance years. Now it is privately owned and houses a private wine stock. The owners sell bottles of wine and give free samples to all visitor.

Our original plan was to turn around at that point and backtrack to Pusan. However, we dediced that we would take and alternate route home. We continued on Highway 25 to Kyoungsan and worked our way northeast through the city to Highway 4. We turned right onto Highway 4 and rode straight on to Kyoungju.

In Kyoungju, we grabbed a quick meal and took Highway 7 and proceeded toward the Kyoungju onramp to Expressway 1. Just before the onramp tollgate, we turned left onto Highway 35 and rode straight on to Pusan.

It was a long, but very enjoyable day. Beautiful sites mixed with some balls to the wall highway riding.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 16th, 2007 at 8:17 pm and is filed under Past Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.