Goseong Dino Park with Seoul Hiking Group

After a wonderful hike and bonfire we awoke ready for the ferry and bus ride to Goseong Dinosaur Museum.  The second part of Warren’s Seoul Hiking Group expedition supposedly sported the world’s largest collection of dinosaur footprint fossils.  After a quick nap on the bus I found myself strolling past life-size replicas of the monstrous beasts!

The museum itself is requires a nominal fee and is very family friendly.  I opted to follow most of my group down a winding path outside of the museum instead.  After crossing a dino-themed bridge and weaving through the evergreens we came upon a beautiful bay.  In the distance we spotted Saryangdo from yesterday’s hike before our man-made path turned into a series of incredible igneous rock steps hovering over the sea.  

Shimmying past the formations it was fascinating to fathom the years that each layer represented.   It reminded me of an exhibit in the  Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History where each step represents millions of years in the universe.  Perhaps here each layer was a mere few hundred-thousand years when suddenly we happened upon a cave.  Above us, a glowing vine shone through the ceiling as light played hide and seek down below.

The cave was short-lived but still a brilliant addition to this trip.  A few feet down the road and we exited to a vast flat expanse of rock.  What at first appeared to be mere puddles turned out to be dozens of dinosaur footprints!  This site is among the top 3 dinosaur sites in the world (the top 3 being Goseong, a site in Colorado, and Argentina’s tracks), at first its hard to believe they are real but a few are a spitting image of those feet I loved to stare at in my favorite NYC museum.

These barnacle encrusted footprints are a memory from eons past.  Although there were some skeptics as to the originality I was sold and certainly enjoyed the rocky seascape with or without real dinosaur footprints!