In 2014 Kim Jong-un embarked on a programme to massively increase international tourism into North Korea, it being one of the few ways in which foreigners could (and can) legally engage with the country, most other avenues being frustrated by US lead international sanctions. Separately the United States barred, and continues to bar, its citizens from travelling to North Korea, except under very limited circumstances.
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Tin Hut Dam Walk – Googong Foreshore
At around 1.5 kilometres (or just over two kilometres if take a short side trip for a look at the Queanbeyan River and the lower reaches of the Googong Reservoir as I did) the walk around Tin Hut Dam is one of the shortest and easiest walks in the Googong Foreshore reserve. While there is no defined path along the western side of the dam, rather you walk through open reserve close to the bank of the dam, you cannot get lost.
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Wonsan Agricultural University
After a couple of hours drive from Hamhung we arrived at the Wonsan Agricultural University, on the outskirts of the city of Wonsan. As a university this is one of the country’s most prestigious and respected and one of the few at which foreign students can enrol. I don’t know if any have.
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Wonsan – The Drive from Hamhung and an Introduction
Pyongyang is often referred to as a showcase capital, for good reason. Anyone who is anyone lives in Pyongyang, anyone who is not anyone is only permitted to enter the city under special circumstances and they certainly cannot live there. The infrastructure, buildings, services and facilities are the best North Korea can offer.
With a few noted exceptions, North Korea outside Pyongyang is a different world but it is a world that is changing, albeit slowly. While only the fifth largest city with a population of around 365,000, Wonsan, in terms of recent development, comes (a distant) second to Pyongyang.
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Queanbeyan River Walk – Googong Foreshores
Do not be fooled or lulled into a false sense of security by the name of this walk (or the associated Queanbeyan River Loop Ride). This is no genteel promenade along the banks of the Queanbeyan River but rather a hard eighteen kilometres hike up and down park management trails which, apart from at two points, is not within sight of the river. Don’t let that put you off though, if you have a reasonable level of fitness this is a very worthwhile walk.
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London Bridge Walk – via London Bridge Homestead
I have done this circular walk a number of times and prefer doing it in an anti-clockwise direction, contrary to the recommended (signposted) route. Don’t worry you won’t get lost and it’s a great walk in either direction, I just prefer to walk the longer, less steep, downhill section first-up with a shorter steeper finish.
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London Bridge, Googong – Walk via Drawdown Crossing
It is amazing to think that millions of years ago, around 420 million to be more precise, the London Bridge, Googong area was part of the ocean floor. As the ocean receded the arch, which would become known as the London Bridge Arch, slowly formed by water leaching through the fossiliferous limestone, enlarging cracks, until a passage big enough to let the Burra Creek through was created. The arch reached its present form about 20,000 years ago.
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Tonghung Hill – The Eternal Leaders in Hamhung
If you need a hill, overlooking the city, preferably at the end of one of its main avenues, on which to erect massive statues of the Great Leader and, later, the Dear Leader and you don’t have one, what do you do? Well, naturally you build one, and especially so in North Korea.
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Hamhung Royal Villa and Yi Seong-gye
When many people think of North Korea they actually think of one or more of the Kim ‘Dynasty’ Leaders, as opposed to the country itself. This ‘dynasty’, now ruling for seventy-two years and counting, began on 9th of September 1948 with the appointment of Kim Il-sung as President of the newly created Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Though never envisaged by anyone that the DPRK would become a dynasty, on Kim Il-sung’s death in 1994 he was succeeded by this son Kim Jong-il who in turn was succeeded by his son, Kim Jong-un in 2011.
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St Andrew’s – An insurance write-off?
Recently on a trip back to Canberra from Goulburn I decided to forgo the main Hume Highway and take the much more scenic rural route – Tourist Route 8 via Bungendore. About 10 kilometres out of Goulburn the sandstone and rubblestone church pictured above caught my eye. I took a slight detour (a few hundred metres) off the main Braidwood road for a closer inspection.
The Rambling Wombat 