고수동굴 gosu caves in danyang 단양

Last week I went on a trip out to the caves in Danyang with the Davids and Laurier. I've been wanting to go since I moved to Chungju and always planned on taking the ferry once everything turned green. And seeing that everything is green now, finally went. But since one of the Davids has a van, he kindly chauffeured us out to the caves. But I forgot to take my camera so Laurier begrudgingly took photos of our trip.

Riding like illegal immigrants in the back of the van.

A nice resting stop along Chungju lake. We drove along the lake and through the winding mountain roads to get to Danyang. It took over an hour to get there from Chungju. You have the option of getting a bus from the main terminal in Chungju, or taking the ferry, we saw a lot of stops for it along the way. Along with a few tour buses.

 Once we were in Danyang, we drove over a bridge, turned right and there were the caves. It's fronted by restaurants and souvenir shops so it's hard to miss, but we did drive by it the first time...
The entrance fee was 4,000 won and once we got inside it was cool, damp, dark and all things cavey. It felt a little scary and claustrophobic at times, especially when I was going up wet, steep, narrow steps, but the formations were absolutely beautiful.

There were a lot of stairs and paths all over, but plenty of them were blocked off. And every now and again, when you encountered any particularly beautiful spots, there were guys hanging out, ready to take your picture, for a price of course.

 I'm not sure how long we were in the caves for, but it didn't seem all that long to me. I guess I was distracted by the initial feeling of tension from climbing steep, narrow staircases into unknown depths that gave way to awe of the natural formations and being able to reach out and touch them.
Before I knew it, it was over.

We stopped by a restaurant and got bibimbap, which I don't have a picture of because Laurier doesn't take food pictures for moral reasons or whatever. And then we were on our way back to Chungju, and made a few more stops along the way whenever we encountered any interesting spots. We set off around 1 in the afternoon and got back when it was dark, maybe around 8pm. It's the best place to take a trip to in the Chungju area, absolutely beautiful the whole way and easily fills up an entire day.