Wombats in Daegu (nearly)

hej all and sundry. Quick ride was had this morning. I’ve placed an add on www.pusanweb.com looking for likeminded bike loving people. I never guessed in my wildest dreams that I would find some guys who not only love to ride, but also enjoy starting at ludicrously early hours just like me. I got a call from a Canadian named claude last week. He said that him and a couple of mates were going to ride to Daegu on Sunday. I thought ‘nice’ and then he said that they would be starting at 6:30am. I couldn’t believe it.


People in the land of the morning calm that get up before noon, amazing. Upshot of the story is that we met in Yangsan at 7:40am and proceeded to ride to Daegu. It was a wild day. Great blokes, great weather, great roads, you couldn’t ask for more. You will see claude in the piccies riding a 750 yamaha and his mate shaun (or sean, I’m not sure) riding none other than a 750 honda magna. We barrelled on to Daegu. I ran more red lights in one morning this morning than I have ever run in my entire life collectively.

Mind you there were some pretty stupid pedestrian crossings out in the middle of the donga that run on timers, so that they turn red every 5 minutes or so, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And these kind of crossings deserve about as much attention as they get.

This next sign however got a lot more attention than it deserves. For the life of me I can only think it must mean don’t throw cigarette butts out of the window of your car. It is lacking any reference to a cigarette butt, but what else could it mean? ‘don’t drive if your car is on fire’ ‘extinguish and naked flame coming from your roof before you drive’ ‘don’t set your car alight while you are driving’'WARNING: CAR ROOFS MAY SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST'. Please let me know if you can make any sense of it at all.

We met tonnes of guys out riding today, probably 40 bikes in all. I can’t wait for wombat touring to start in earnest, although it’s probably a few years away yet. I guess the thing I’m most excited about is the disappointment I have felt since moving from Gangwon-do to Gyeongsangnam-do evaporated today. It was nice to meet a few locals to show that it has more than its fair share of highlights down south here too.