After our time in Kyoto, we continued on our journey with Jan for a six day hike on the Kumano Kodo Trail, famous as a pilgrimage trail through mountains and temples. It, along with the Camino de Santiago, are the only two UNESCO / World Heritage pilgrimage hikes. We booked our hike with Oku Japan who arranged our transportation, accommodations and baggage transfer. They also provided very detailed instructions and guides since we were doing it as a self-guided hike. They also helped us during the hike a couple of times: once when we missed a bus and needed a hotel pickup, and another time when a phone was left at a hotel and needed forwarded.
The entire hike is quite long so we did the most popular section, the Nakahechi trail which was once considered the imperial route. It started from Takijiri on the western edge of the Kii peninsula and ended in Kii-Katsuura on the eastern coast. The sheer number of pilgrims who would march in long processions earned the trail the nickname ‘pilgrimage of ants’.
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| Map of the Kumano Kodo Trails |
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| Start of the hike |
Accommodations/Restaurants:
With the exception of the last hotel, near the airport, we shared a room with Jan at each of the places on the trail. Each of the rooms had Japanese style mattresses on tatami mats.
Kirinosato Takahara - Located in Takahara, this was our first night on the trail. The place was super cute with beautiful views of the mountains. While we had a toilet in our room, the shower and onsen bath were shared by gender. We left the windows open and had a nice breeze at night. The mattresses were not the thickest but were still pretty comfortable. The best part was the food - we had an amazing dinner and breakfast and they prepared a lunch for us to take away on the trail. Everything was super flavorful. Before dinner, we had a few beers on the deck, taking in the views.
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| Relaxing in our room - view from our room |
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| Dinner at our hotel |
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| View from our room |
Chikatsuyu Sora - Located in Chikatsuyu, this was our second night on the trail. We stayed in a four bedroom guest house with shared bathrooms. The owners were super nice and the woman (Naomi) spoke really good English. We had dinner and breakfast with the owners and the other guest in their kitchen / dining room. For dinner, she made lots of tasty vegetables and garlic pork and for breakfast we had eggs, rice and a few veggies as well. They made us a lunch to take with us on the trail with onigiri and a few small snacks. Shawna was so enamored with this adorable older couple that she wanted to take them back to the US!
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| Our room at Chikatsuyu Sora |
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| The owners of Chikatsuyu Sora |
Ryokan Azumaya - Located in Yunomine Onsen, this was our third night on the trail. We had a toilet and sink in our room and shared gender specific showers/onsen in the hotel. Both Jan and Keith used the onsen and thought it was quite relaxing. The place was not as cute as the prior two but was clean and the guy who served us in our room was super nice and very funny. We had dinner and breakfast in our room - both of them traditional kaiseki style meals with many small courses. Dinner had soup, shabu shabu, rice, fish, and vegetables. Breakfast included miso soup, fish, rice, tofu and pickled vegetables. Some of the dishes were tasty.
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| Ryokan Azumaya |
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| Breakfast for three - so much food! |
Fujiya Ryokan - Located in Kawayu Onsen, this was our fourth night on the trail. It was not located near where the trail ended as the accommodations there were full so we had to take a bus back to it (more on that below). It was a very large hotel so we had our own shower as well as toilet and sink in our room. The place was right on the river which you could bath in but unfortunately, we got there too late to enjoy it. Dinner and breakfast were in a large dining room and again we had the multi-course kaiseki style meal that was similar to the prior place. Some of the dishes were tasty.
Manseiro - Located in Kii-Katsuura (a town on the coast) on the water, this was our last night on the trail and was also another large hotel where we had our own toilet, sink and shower. It was probably our least favorite hotel as it was a bit more run down than the others - that said it was still clean. Dinner and breakfast were served in a large dining room and were kaiseki style like the prior two nights. The food was pretty tasty.
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| View of our hotel from the pier |
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| Dressed for dinner |
Washington Hotel Kansai Airport - Hotel in Osaka near the airport, we stayed here on our last night with Jan. We each had our own room - ours was a very small but clean room with a double bed. We walked to a few nearby Izakayas but they were full so we ended up having dinner at the hotel - a traditional Japanese hamburger and fries (apparently we needed a break from Japanese food) - Jan paid for our dinner to thank us for the planning. Breakfast was included which was a multi-national buffet serving American, Japanese, Chinese and Indian. The shuttle to the airport which we took the next morning to pick up our rental car to continue on our journey.
Activities:
Each day, we hiked through the mountains and forests, seeing small shrines along the way. The trail was very well maintained and the forests were quite beautiful with pine and cedar trees as well as ferns and bamboo. The signs were also very clear on where to go and not go (saying "Not Kumano Kodo"!). In each town, there was a shop we could stop in to get a free gift or snack after we showed them our Oku Japan wooden tag. We could also get stamps at most of the shrines and stops along the way so Jan filled up her stamp book. In total, we hiked 44 miles and 12K feet in elevation across five days.
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| View on our hike |
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| We hiked on paths like this |
1st day hike: We started the hike in Takijiri and we walked 3 miles, 1.3K elevation gain to Takahara. Parts were steep but manageable and we did it in less than 2 hours. In Takahara, we visited the oldest shrine on the hike that has trees that are over a thousand years old.
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| One of the shrines on the hike |
2nd day hike: We hiked from Takahara to Chikatsuyu - a total of 6.7 miles, 1.7K elevation gain and 4.5 hours. We saw a couple of snakes - come to find out one of them was poisonous! We ate our lunch at one of the shrines about an hour before the end of the hike. In town, we visited the Oku Japan office to ask them about the next day hike options and we walked around the town before we checked in to our accommodation.
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| Great signage along the way |
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| Chikatsuyu |
3rd day hike: Our longest day, we took a bus from Chikatsuyu to Doyukawa-bashi and then hiked to Hongu, a total of 12.4 miles, 2.3K elevation gain and 6 hours. This was interesting because the first part of the hike had been closed for 14 years because of a landslide, we hiked the re-opened leg the first day it opened. It was this day that we saw the Kumano Hongu Taisha, the Grand Shrine which is the shrine where all of the different Kumano Kodo trails pass through in the middle. The buildings were quite beautiful. This shrine used to be located on the river but they had to relocate it in the middle 1800s after a flood had damaged most of the buildings. We walked over to the Kumano Hongu Torii Gate which is the tallest Torii gate in Japan and used to be the entrance to the shrine when it was located on the river. We then went inside the Kumano Hongu World Heritage Center where they had some interesting and well-done displays about the trails and the major shrines. After this, we took another bus to Yunomine Onsen where we stayed the night.
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| Kumano Hongu Taisha |
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| Hongu Torii Gate |
4th day hike: We took a bus from Yunomine Onsen to Ukegawa and then hiked to Koguchi - a total of 9.2 miles, 2.6K elevation and 4.5 hours. There were not too many shrines on this trail but rather remains of several tea houses. Nonetheless, it was still scenic. We had some time to kill in Koguchi before the bus so we hung out at an outdoor cafe and had beer and snacks. Several of the other hikers did the same. There were not many accommodations in this town so many of the hikers had to bus back to accommodations - we had to do the same, going about 40 minutes back to Kawayu Onsen. We had to transfer buses and unfortunately we stood on the wrong side of the road for our transfer. Thus, we and another couple from Boulder, CO had to wait for the last bus which was an hour and 10 minutes later. We called Oku Japan to see if they could arrange a taxi but by the time the taxi would arrive, the next bus would be there. As Keith tried to spell which bus stop we were, we said "N" as in "Nancy" which we laughed because they would not know that name so we told him to use "N" as in "Nara". We hung out and chatted with the other couple while we waited for the bus. This bus only took us to Ukegawa which meant we would have to walk another 30 minutes to our hotel but Oku had arranged to have a shuttle from our hotel pick us up from the bus stop which was awesome - they also gave a ride to the other couple from CO. When Keith asked Oku how the shuttle driver would know us, they said 'he will know' - we are the only white people getting off that bus at that time! A bit of a snafu but not too bad - we arrived at our hotel at 6:15pm.
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| More views along the hike |
5th day hike: Our final day and another long day, we took a taxi from Kawayu Onsen to Koguchi and then hiked to Kumano Nachi Taisha (another Grand Shrine). The hike was fairly steep during the first half but nothing too crazy - a total of 12.3 miles, 4.2K elevation gain and 7 hours. At the end of the hike, we explored the Grand Shrine, which is the major shrine at the end/beginning of the hike and the Seiganto-ji Temple. We walked up the Takiju-an Pagoda to see views of the area. We walked down to the Nachi Waterfall which is the tallest single drop waterfall in Japan at 133 meters. We ended the hike going down the Daimon-saka steps to the very end/beginning of the trail. We then took a bus to Kii-Katsuura where we stayed the night.
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| Seiganto-ji Temple |
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| Takiju-an Pagoda |
6th day: We had the morning to kill before we took our train back to Osaka so we took the bus over to Shingu to see the third important shrine of the southern section of the Kumano Kodo - Kumano Hayatama Taisha - known to be the site where the Kumano deities first descended. We then walked up to the Shingu Castle Ruins which was a large complex with stone walls with nice views of the town and bay. We took the bus back to our hotel, had a few pastries at a local cafe where we got our final Oku Japan gift (free coffee) and then took the train back to Osaka to check into our hotel and have our final night together.
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| Kumano Hayatama Taisha |
