Biryong Falls or the Heundeulbawi walk
1 / 2Biryong Falls or the Heundeulbawi walkPhoto: Jhkangphoto / CC BY-SA 4.0
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Two Korea National Park Service routes from the park gate, each about an hour each way. Biryong Falls: 2.4 km, the first 1.2 km wheelchair-grade, then steel decks in the gorge, with 30 minutes of stairs to the Towangseong viewpoint beyond. Heundeulbawi: 2.8 km of gentle path to a 5 m boulder that rocks but never falls, rated easy for the elderly. No fee.
- It is a view, so it is weather. Check the morning sky before you commit the hours.
- No single published ride covers this one. Budget for a taxi both ways, or fold it into a guided day.
Why Biryong Falls or the Heundeulbawi walk is famous
Biryong, the flying dragon, is the waterfall on the south side of the Sangcheon valley, 2.4 km from Sogongwon. The Korea National Park Service gives an hour each way: the first 1.2 km graded for wheelchairs and pushchairs, then steel decks through the gorge. A further 400 m and 30 minutes of stairs reach a viewpoint over the Towangseong falls. Heundeulbawi, the rocking rock, is 2.8 km up the other valley beside the Gyejoam hermitage. It is a boulder about 5 m high resting on a larger rock; a push will rock it, and nobody has ever tipped it. The park service rates that path as no great difficulty for children or the elderly.
Biryong Falls or the Heundeulbawi walk and your ship
Both pins on one map, so the distance is a fact rather than a feeling.
Where the 2 hr 40 min goes
Counted from the moment you step off the gangway. The hour before all-aboard is not in this bar; it is already set aside.
26 minutes each way is the measured figure for taxi ~26 min each way to sogongwon, then 2.4 km or 2.8 km each way on foot, not the optimistic one. If your ship is late, cut the 1 hr 48 min in the middle. Never cut the hour at the end.
Routes that already include it
Each one is a finished day we have walked and timed, with this stop in it. Read the route rather than assembling it yourself.
What to put beside it
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
3 hr 55 min for bothOjingeo sundae lunch in Abai Village
Ojingeo sundae is squid stuffed with rice and vegetables and steamed, the refugees’ substitute when pork intestine was short.
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4 hr for bothAbai Village and the Gaetbae ferry
The quarter built in 1950 by about 6,000 refugees from North Korea’s Hamgyeong Province, on the sandbar beside the terminal.
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4 hr 20 min for bothSinheungsa and the Unification Buddha
The Jogye Order head temple just inside Seoraksan’s Sogongwon gate, rebuilt on this site in 1648.
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