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Travelogues (5) : Gangchon Rail Bike

While planning this trip, I browsed through many hotel websites, especially Airbnb and I particularly fond of loft-style hotels. Since I had chosen to experience a Hanok accommodation in Seoul, I tried looking for lofts in Chuncheon instead. After searching for weeks, I finally found 1 that I liked and booked it without any hesitation. The hotel/resort hosts water sport games in the summer, since it was already Autumn, it was quite easy to book.

The host provides free pick up from the train station (I guessed it was probably due to it’s location being hard to get to without a car). When we reached The Dolphin Resort (돌고래 리조트) after about 15 – 20 minutes ride (in the dark), we found that we might be the only guests in the entire hotel (as we did not see guests even till the next morning)! I guessed I had really hit the ‘Jackpot’ this time as the nobody really booked this hotel off peak season.

As there were no restaurants or convenience stores nearby, we decided to have our dinner in the hotel’s restaurant. Since there were no guests staying there, the chef had already taken a break and having his dinner with the other hotel staff. He told us to take a seat in the restaurant while he switched on the lights and arranged our table. Everything felt dodgy but they were very friendly so we didn’t care much. The food was unexpectedly good!

Since there was nothing much for us to do, we turned in early that night. The next day, although the hotel was near Nami Island, it was inconvenient for us to come back to the hotel and pick up our luggage to hit the road. So we asked the host to send us back to the train station.

We had to find a place to store our luggage while we went sightseeing, the only place I found was at an Emart near the Chuncheon Bus Terminus (as I couldn’t be sure from internet sources that the metro station we were going to had lockers) where we were planning to take the Intercity bus to Sokcho. After dropping our luggage there, we were finally on our way to Gangchon Rail Bike (강촌 레일바이크)!

It was getting pretty late (to us), so we took a taxi to the rail bike (instead of taking the metro that I initially had planned). By the time we reached there, people were already departing with the bikes. We quickly went to the ticketing counter to see if we could ride the bikes but the ticketing officer said that all 2-person bikes were full, we had to wait for the next interval to book it which was 1 hour after. We had no choice but bought the tickets and waited for the next internal. Just as we turned around, 2 girls from Hong Kong asked us if we wanted to share a 4-person bike which was still available at that time, we quickly agreed and the ticketing officer was kind enough to change our tickets for us. Finally, we embarked on our Gangchon Rail Bike ride!

A little background on the the Gangchon Rail Bike is built on a discontinued train line, The Mugunghwa train (무궁화호) and re-purposed into a recreation rail bike trail that gives you a view of the Chuncheon countryside. Many variety programs such as Running Man (런닝맨) or Dad! Where Are We Going? (아빠! 어디가?) have featured this attraction which snowballed its popularity among tourists.

Inside one of the tunnels, they were playing Trot songs and this was one of my favourite songs by Hong Jin Young (홍진영), Love Battery (사랑의 배터리)!

After pedalling for 1 hour on the bike (it’s still tough even with 4 people pedalling), we transferred to the Rail Bike train that brings us to the end of the trail. We then boarded a free shuttle to return back to the starting point near Gimyujeong Station (김유정역). We then boarded the train to Gapyeong Station (갑평역) where we tried to wait for public transportation to Nami Island (남이섭). After waiting a while, there seemed to be no bus, so we took a taxi there since it was not that far away.

Writer : Wei Wei

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