Archive | Gulag Road

Gulag Road:

Road of Bones, North Korea, the DMZ  and South Korea

Riders: Gareth Morgan, Jo Morgan, Dave Wallace, Brendan Keogh, Tony Armstrong, Chris Stephens
Motorcycles: Suzuki DR650
Distance: 9,000km
Countries: Russia, North Korea, South Korea

Trip description:

Starting at Magadan in the Russian Far East, the city founded in 1929 as the centre of Stalin’s forced labour system, once we complete all three sections of this ride we will ultimately end up – 9 months of riding and 40,000 kms later – down in NZ. It’s a long ride that we’ll do in three stages, so Part One of The Long Drop will have us first traverse Stalin’s 2,00km Road of Bones west across the Siberian mountains to Yakutsk then southeast and around the border with China to Vladivostok before we ride into North Korea. Our mission is to ride the whole of the Korean Peninsula from Mt Paekdu in the north through the DMZ to Mt Halla on Cheju Island off the south of the South. For 4,000 years Korea was one society, for just 60 it’s been crudely separated. 25 million people in the North, 50 million in the South –our ride is to celebrate the Korea’s unifying Baekdudaegan mountain range and the long history of its people.


Blogs from the trip


Biker-mates

Gareth and Jo update on South Korea journey

Gareth, Jo and the team are into their last few days of the South Korean leg of their adventure. The Korean Globe Riders Sunday warriors took the team for a motorcycle ride that Gareth won’t forget for a long time and is still shaken up by. The whole project has an enormous profile in Korea […]

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Jo Morgan’s take on North Korea

Having just succeeded in crossing the DMZ from North to South Korea, Jo Morgan gives us her personal take on what she experienced in the North. She talks about the food, the people and their personality, their culture and music as well as how Jo and her team interacted with the locals. It is easy […]

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The West needs to rethink its ideas about Korea

The West needs to rethink its ideas about Korea

Having passed successfully through the demilitarised zone Gareth explains to the world’s media why the West’s “beat-up” view of North Korea is completely wrong. Gareth and Jo and their group were free to set their own route through North Korea, witnessing at first hand the lives of ordinary North Koreans. What they found surprised them […]

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The Long Drop Ep.20 – Reunion of WBB Group

Jo creates havoc at Vladivostok’s airport with her crazy antics and the Russians are not amused at all! The rest of the team arrive off the plane to the usual wise cracks and Gareth is not going to get any sleep tonight as major anxiety creeps back into his mind. Monday August 12th  – Tony and Brendan […]

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