Pilgrim for a day - Kii Peninsula

It's been a while since my last post. I've spent a month in Japan and of course that should mean I've got more stories to tell! But somehow it's been hard to get my mind back into working order since I came back. Harder than usual that is ;-)

I decided to just start with the 'easiest' story from Japan to get back into blogging . So this post will be all about the Kumano Kodo...

At 9 am we were walking under tall trees

Kumano Kodo translate roughly as 'the old route' and is a network of ancient pilgrimage mountain trails on the Japanes Kii-Peninsula, south east of Kyoto. (click here for more info)

We like to mix some nature activities into our trips, and when read about this area, we decided to go there. There are many hiking possibilities, but we walked just one day on the Nakahechi route. We chose this trail because it was fairly accesible, looked not too touristy, and you can fairly easy book accomodation through the tourist office.

Some steep climbs...

We walked from Nonaka-no-Ipposugi to Hongu, a 22 km hike. Since it was quite hard to get information on exactly what to expect, we were very happy with the walking schedule on the tourist information website.
Like all things Japanese, it was very detailed: You were supposed to start at 7am(!) and the whole hike was devided into sections. For every section a distance and a time was specified. To the minute. As did every point of interest.
Very funny, but very informative as well!

Part of the hike information provided by the tourist office:
we had 5 minutes to look at the tea house remains....

So we decided to start as instructed, and monitor closely for the first hour or 2 if we could keep up with the schedule. If we could, we would walk on, if we couldn't, we would turn back and take the bus. This was quite important, as the trail would mostly pass uninhabited areas and it wouldn't be possible to stop halfway through.

Around noon we walked trough a lovely valley

We spent the night at a nice minshuku (Japanese style B&B) and our hosts were so kind to drive us up the first hill (a very steep climb bout 200m up).
At 7:05am we started walking. The first hour or so we welked over on paved roads but then we entered the woods. After 2 hours we were still on schedule, so we decided to proceed. And what a lovely walk it was!

We were pleasantly surprised by the diversity in terrain. From majestic cedar woods, past small shrines, to fairytail like mossy paths, some very steep ascends and panoramic vistas. It was a strenuous hike though. But well worth it.

At 1 pm we walked an old paved section

We encountered about 10 people on the trail itself, so we could really enjoy our surroundings. The only downside: there weren't a lot of places to get water (that sounds like a weird thing to say, but when you go to Japan, you get used to vending machines every 100m very quickly!)

Some nice views around 2 pm

The last 1,5 hours, near the Honshu shrine, was in a more populated and area, so that was busier.  We arrived at the Honshu shrine around half past 3. And pretty much exhausted...
And we finally met some Japanes hikers, at least they wore a proper hikingoutfit even though we only saw them at the shrine

The Japanese prepare a bit better for their hikes than we did

The whole hike was very clearly marked, including the detour caused by a landslide.
We spent the following night at Yumomine Onsen town, where we could ease our muscles in a very hot, and rather smelly, thermal bath.

A well signposted trail