A trip to the fantastic suspension bridge over an amazing canyon at Wolchulsan National Park. Later, I discovered a very nice ramen place near my accommodation. 라멘집아저씨 월출산.

DAY 3 OF 4-DAY TRIP to Mokpo

I think Wolchulsan is now one of my favourite mountain hikes in Korea. It’s a relatively small national park but the rock formations and landscape are pretty unique compared to mountains around Seoul. I’ve seen it mentioned a few times on some hiking groups and I was interested in seeing the big red suspension bridge over a canyon. I liked it in the same way I like Juwangsan and Naeyeonsan. I made some errors in what I thought would be a figure of eight hike going over the red suspension bridge twice. Alas, that was not the case; I could only go over once! Anyway, it was fine.

I rented a SOCAR for the day then drove to Wolchulsan National Park. The park was about 40 minutes away from Mokpo, and it was a little foggy. I went to the eastern entrance, by Cheonwang campsite (천황야영장), the entrance closest to the suspension bridge. You can park near the entrance but only people staying at accommodation there can drive further into the park. The campsite looks nice, so I’d like to camp there sometime. The trails start just after the campsite. After some bamboo forest, you have a choice of two routes up to the bridge; I took the right-hand one.

The route up takes you into the canyon and then there are steps going straight up the middle. Along the way, recordings are triggered warning of falling rocks, reminding me of the woman’s voice on the speakers in the drama Squid Game (I imagined she was warning me of snipers). Some of the walkways were covered in metal grating for protection. At the top, you turn left, up a bit more, then the bridge!

I spent a while there looking back to the sea and into the mountain. It was a little too hazy to see very far out, and my iPhone could see even less that me. There were only a few people at the bridge but they were also spending a lot of time there taking photos and the like; how dare they! I spent some time on the bridge too, marvelling at the drop and the surrounding mountains. At the far end of the bridge there’s a picnic table; what a spot!

Off the bridge, you head left and up, up, up. There’s a great point where you look down to the bridge where you can marvel again at it’s glory!

The hike to the peak of Cheonhwangbong took another 90 minutes up and down a few valleys until you get to a broad peak. I stayed a while here for lunch and looked at my misty surroundings. It’s the tail end of Autumn so the colours were muted and lots of trees were bare. The grey and mist, plus hazy distances made the whole area look very ethereal. There were a few groups of hikers at the top, plus lots of circling crows.

There’s an option to head west to the opposite end of the mountain but I had to loop back to the car park. You have to double back a little ways, but there’s an alternative route along a ridge that eventually opens up to views of the bridge from the other side of the range; very nice. It was about 4 hours 30 minutes round trip including 30 minutes at the top for lunch.

It was a lot less foggy by the time I got to the car. I drove a short way south to Baegun Okpan Cha Story (백운옥판차 이야기), a tea shop with a garden and views of the mountain. I sat with an omijacha tea, then drove up and west to a green tea farm belonging to O’sulloc company(?) (설록다원강진).

A bit more west and I came across Muwisa temple (무위사) and wandered around a bit.

Then it was home for a shower and my nightly hunt for food. I wandered around for quite a while; for such a large city, there’s a lack of centralised food areas. I ended up back near my accommodation and tried a Korean place that looked good but they would only serve groups of two or more; poor me. I went opposite to a place selling Chinese food and got something that was a bit too spicy! Oh well. I grabbed some beers near the station and on the way back, on the same street I was staying, was Ramen Jip Ajossi (라멘집아저씨), a second floor Ramen place! How did I miss this?! I went up for dinner number 2. It was fantastic! I chatted a while with the chef who says he was trained in Seoul and then came down to Mokpo to open and run a second branch of his mentor’s store. I hope it stays in business. If I had been staying another night, this is where’d I’d be coming!

Back at the hostel, I packed for my trip home, had a beer then watched something on Netflix.

Places visited this trip (click the ‘door’ icon to see a list):