The Remaining Majesty of Ancient Mountain

Yogyakarta, it’s a special region with many awesome places to be visited. From cultural, historical to natural tourism can be found here, so it’s a must to visit this City at least once in a life time. This time I want to share about southern part of Yogyakarta or well known as Gunung Kidul. This place is famous for its beautiful beaches, I had reviewed my great experience with some beaches there. Other than beach, do you know that Gunung Kidul has a great ancient mountain? Here is my story visiting the famous ancient mountain in Gunung Kidul three years ago (pardon my late update).

The gorgeous view from Nglanggeran Mountain 

People call it Nglanggeran. I knew it from my cousin, he hiked Nglanggeran and shared his story to me. I was so interested to hike it too. I browsed the internet and found the map, I made the itinerary, submitted holiday proposal to my hubby (LOL) and poof!! We were there, yay!

It was Friday when we left for Yogyakarta from Semarang. We were lucky cause my good friend (he is an adventurer too) offered a shelter for us to spend the night. It was near Adi Sucipto Airport in Maguwoharjo area. We arrived at his place at 7pm, then we had our dinner not far from there (we had delicious “Penyet” – it can be fried chicken, catfish, etc complete with spicy sambal – with very reasonable price).

Found this eye catching sticker on my friend's cupboard. So inspiring :D

On Saturday morning we started our adventure, our destination was Nglanggeran Mountain. The road to get it was very easy to find, we passed the road to Gunung Kidul and turned left in Pathuk (in front of Pathuk police office) went straight and just followed the sign to Nglanggeran. It was about 45 minutes from Yogyakarta. We paid IDR 5000/ person for the admission and parking fee. And we started our hiking, hurraaa!!

These giant rocks welcomed us as we started to hike

There were so many wooden planks containing directions to the top, wise words and motivational words

Nglanggeran absolutely has great view, the track is easy, and there are many signs and directions guiding the hikers so they will not get lost. And the most important part is: many good spots to take a picture and you can show it off on your socmed :D When I and my hubby hiked the mountain, there were many people there since it was weekend but not all of them hike to the top. We even met a foreigner from Australia who came with his Indonesian friend (or girlfriend maybe?). To reach the top of the mountain we only needed 2 hours, but I remembered we took more than 2 hours because we stopped too many times just to take a break or take picture (Thank God we brought 2 cameras, even though we were not good in taking pictures).

An AustAustra man and Indonesian woman

I said the track was easy, but still challenging 

Well, maybe this was the most difficult. 

Chilling on a high place is always good idea

In every journey everyone needs to take a break

The right time, the right place and the right person. What a perfect combination

Can you see the downpour? 

LOL. Somebody under that heavy rain must be wet and cold

We were lucky because when we arrived at the top it was just about to rain and so cloudy but we didn’t get wet at all. We even had opportunity to see the heavy rain somewhere from above and it was an awesome view to be enjoyed with my hubby. Soon it was too windy and foggy, so we decided to go back. We just needed 1 hour to reach the parking lot since we didn’t take a break often. But still, we took many pictures on the way down.

Be careful, it was slippery

Another part of the top of the mountain 

My man <3

Stay hydrated guys! 

That was great, but we totally hungry after the hiking. So don’t forget to bring foods, snack and water so you won’t be starving like we did. One thing we have to remember wherever we go: do not litter!

Nglanggeran, February 1st 2015


Note: because it has been 3 years, many things must have changed including the ticket, route, condition and many more. My apology if there are many things I shared here that are different from the current condition of the mountain.