Gyeryongsan National Park

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Happy Hangeul Day!

We left around midnight and drove for about two and a half hours. We arrived in what felt like the middle of nowhere, after the bus driver had done his obligatory duty if getting us lost a couple of times. We were in the grounds/car park of some building. I think it was a town hall kind of thing. We set the tents up. Well I watched as I am clueless about these tings and we tried to get some sleep. It was freezing, so I just spent most of the time shivering with a couple of cat naps. We woke up around half six, some of the others had got a fire going, it was nice to stand in front of that and warm up a bit. I had a banana and a mini croissant for breakfast. It filled a hole, and I washed it down with a bottle of Bacchus (Korean energy drink) to set me up for the hike.

The daylight let us see our surroundings. It had felt like we were in the middle of nowhere last night, but we were in a small village. There were quite a few houses and even a small super (convenience store). Yes, we were definitely in the countryside, the people who walked and drove past us all looked like farmers. We walked through the village for about ten to fifteen minutes to get to the start of the trail. Gyeryongsan National Park was designated as the second national park in Korea, in 1968. The name 'Gyeryong' means rooster dragon, and it got this name because the ridge line of the mountain looks like a dragon wearing the crown of a rooster. We hiked for about an hour to an hour and a half. The trail was nice, it rose gradually for the most part, so didn't feel too steep. It was also really quiet, which was nice. We saw a few other hikers, but not lots of big groups, which was nice. We took a couple of short breaks, but we didn't really stop until we reached Nammaetap pagoda.

Nammaetap was pretty quiet and we spent some time looking around and chilling. There is a legend attached to Nammaetap, involving a brother and sister, and a tiger. After the fall of the Baekje kingdom, a man of royal linage fled to the woods and became a monk. He made a cave, where he lived a very austere, simple life. One day, the monk saw a tiger suffering with a bone that was caught in its throat. The man helped the tiger to remove the bone, and as a thank you, the tiger brought the man a beautiful woman. The man and woman had to share the cave and live together as it was winter and there was a lot of snow on the ground outside. As time went on, the man and women grew very fond of each other. The woman asked the man to marry him, but he refused due to his religious obligations. So instead they vowed to be brother and sister, and they practiced Buddhism together and at the same time on the same day, they passed into Nirvana. The two pagodas serve as a monument to them.

We continued up to the peak, that part of the hike only took about fifteen to twenty minutes, but was quite steep. There were a lot of stairs. We arrived at Sambulbong peak. It was quite busy at the peak, but the views were magnificent. You could see all the other peaks. You could do a loop hike, that went to all the other peaks, but we didn't have time to do it, unfortunately. When we were admiring the view, we saw a bloke sitting on another rock high up. So while the others started to make their descent, we headed off in the other directions for a few minutes. We found the rock, it was off the trail, so we were little rebels and hopped over the banister and climbed up the rock. It was so peaceful sitting there, and we sat there for ages, munching on our picnic.

We headed back down the slope to Nammaetap. Oh my god! It has been really quiet early, but now it was heaving with people. We had definitely timed the hike right, by starting early. We headed down through the valley, the autumn colours were starting to come out, so it looked really beautiful. The hike down was nice, not too steep or difficult. We weren't hiking back to where we had started, but to a different point, Donghaksa temple. The temple complex was pretty small, well there were other parts but they were off limits to us mere mortals, but it was really beautiful. The area was gorgeous with the temple nestled at the bottom of the valley, surrounded by mountains on all sides, which were bright with autumn colours. Donghaksa temple is special as it is the first and oldest existing academic institute for female monks.The temple is home to about 150 monks, who study and practice Buddhism there. We left the temple and walked for about a kilometer to the entrance to the national park. We stopped off at a restaurant and partook in some chestnut makgeolli as it is a specialty of that area, and in season, before heading to the bus.

We drove for about an hour and reached the city of Gongju. We visited two sites there. Our first stop was the Songsan-ri Burial Mounds. There are seven burial mounds there, six were discovered during the Japanese occupation of Korea, however the seventh tomb, that of King Muryeong, was only discovered by accident, by a historian in 1971. We walked around the tombs, and visited the small museum attached. The museum has replicas of the tombs, and you could go inside and see what they are. We then headed over to Gongsan Fortress, we walked around what was left of the old fortress walls. More walking! I was knackered after that!

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