Kumano Kodo Hiking

Kumano Kodo Nakahechi routeTakijiri-oji Shrine ~ Kirinosato

Your bus will drop you right at the entrance to the Takijiri-oji Shrine, handily located just across the road from the Kumano Kodo Information Center. This marks the start point of your hike along the Kumano Kodo Nakahechi pilgrim's trail. The Nakahechi is the core route of the Kumano Kodo trail network and connects the western part of the Kii peninsula with the three Kumano Grand Shrines, towards which you will be winding your way along forested trails. Before setting out, be sure to pay a visit to Takijiri-oji itself. Oji are subsidiary shrines along the Kumano Kodo route, and Takajiri is one of the 'Gotai-oji' - the five most important Oji shrines. Take a few minutes to relax and enjoy the sound of the Tonda river flowing past the shrine as you work up the courage to set off on your hike!

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Onsen & Ryokan Inn

Overnight at the Kirinosato Takahara Organic Hotel

After approximately 1 hour of traversing ancient stone staircases and forest trails, you will reach your final destination for today, the Kirinosato Takahara Organic Hotel. Perched on a hillside overlooking the surrounding mountains, you can put your feet up after your hike and enjoy watching the glorious sunset from the outdoor terrace seating before enjoying a delicious dinner of home-cooked fusion cuisine made using locally grown organic produce. It's worth setting your alarm early tomorrow morning, if the stars align and the conditions are right, you may find yourself looking out at a landscape enveloped by a sea of clouds. Even if the stars don't align, you'll find yourself setting out on cloud nine after a healthy organic breakfast which will set you well on your way!

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Kumano Kodo Hiking

Kumanokodo Hyakkengura

From Ukegawa you will begin your climb along the Kogumotori-goe route. The beginning of the trail will take you through the backstreets of a quiet residential area before rising steeply up through forests of cedar and cypress trees with their woody scent lingering heavily in the air around you. After around 5 kilometers you're sure to gasp in awe as you reach your goal, Hyakken-gura, one of the best lookout points that can be found among all of the Kumano pilgrimage trails. From here you can enjoy a breathtaking panoramic view across the entire Kumano mountain range. Take your time to bask in this glorious vista before heading back down to Ukegawa - it's much easier on the way down!

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Shrine

Kumano Hayatama Taisha Grand Shrine

Just a stone's throw from the bus stop is the Kumano Hayatama Taisha Grand Shrine, another member of the illustrious three Kumano Grand Shrines. Lying adjacent to the banks of the Kumano River, the shrine's eminent history harkens back to at least the 12th century and possibly earlier. Although located within the urban environment of Shingu city, the grounds of the Hayatama Shrine feel like another world, a tranquil oasis removed from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Be sure to look out for ornamental banners and other shrine ornaments featuring the yatagarasu, a three-legged crow believed to be a sacred messenger of the three great Kumano shrines.

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Shrine

Kamikura-jinja Shrine

A short walk from Kumano Hayatama Taisha Grand Shrine will bring you to an imposing stone staircase framed by a vermillion torii shrine gate. The ascent is so steep that you may find yourself almost crawling up using your hands as well as your feet! After 15 minutes of scrambling, you will be rewarded with a view of the Kamikura-jinja Shrine, built beneath a huge boulder believed to be the spot at which the Kumano deities revered within the three Grand Shrines first descended to earth, and therefore a spot of special spiritual significance. The shrine building wedged underneath the gigantic boulder, with the city of Shingu and the sunlight shimmering off the Pacific Ocean in the background make this a fantastic photo spot!

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Hotel

Overnight in Shingu

After visiting its two most sacred monuments, this evening you will stay the night in the small city of Shingu, which is easily navigable on foot.

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Shrine

Ise Jingu

Considered by most to be Japan's foremost center for Shinto worship, the Inner compound of Ise Jingu enshrines Amaterasu-Omikami, the great sun goddess, believed to be the mythical ancestress of the Japanese Imperial Family. The minimalist simplicity of the shrine creates a sublime sense of awe as visitors make their way along the wide boulevards leading to the main sanctuary. Unlike other Shinto shrines in Japan, where worshippers purify themselves before praying at specially constructed stone basins, as the Ise Inner Shrine devotees also have the chance to purify their hands by washing them at an area by the sacred Isuzugawa River which runs past the Uji Bridge at the entrance to the complex. A unique feature of the Ise Shrine's inner sanctuary is that the buildings are completely reconstructed every 20 years in an area directly adjacent to the previous buildings. The sense of mystery that you feel when visiting Ise Jingu is compounded by the fact that it's not possible to enter the inner sanctuary itself; visitors perform their supplications from a fenced area at the entrance to the inner sanctuary, with the shrine buildings themselves only just visible above the surrounding walls and trees. Ise Jingu is a great lesson in how showing just a tantalizing glimpse of something can create a more powerful impression than a full-on view!

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Shrine

Meotoiwa (the Wedded Rocks)

Sitting steadfastly in the ocean, just off the coast where the Futami Okitama Jinja is perched above the gently lapping waves, sit the Meotoiwa, or 'wedded rocks' - two rocks, one large and one small, joined in happy union by a sacred braided rope with an impressive weight of 40kg! The two rocks are believed to represent the sacred union of Izanagi and Izanami, a divine husband and wife team and parents to the sun goddess enshrined in the nearby Ise Jingu, jointly credited as the deities responsible for the creation of the Japanese archipelago. Given the conjoined rocks' association with sacred coupling, the shrine is a popular place for couples to visit together and pray to strengthen their ties of love. The romantic setting looking out to the ocean, where even distant Mt Fuji can be glimpsed on the horizon on very clear days, certainly helps to achieve this goal!

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Hotel

Overnight at Nagoya Marriott Associa Hotel

After 5 days of hiking and exploring, what better way to round out your trip than to stay the night at the Marriott Associa Hotel, a luxury property directly connected to Nagoya Station. Arriving in the late afternoon, on checking in you can toast your success with a refreshing expertly crafted cocktail at the hotel's Estmare bar before enjoying a hearty and well-deserved feast for dinner at one of the hotel's six in-house restaurants; restaurant choices include French cuisine, Chinese dim sum, Japanese teppanyaki cooked right before your eyes, or buffet-style dining if you're feeling a calorie deficit after your 5 days of hiking! One thing's for sure, after soaking up the panoramic view of the bright lights of Nagoya from your room, you're sure to sleep well tonight. Have a lie in - you've earned it!

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Walking Tour

Take a walk through the streets of Yuasa

Yuasa is a small town on the west coast of the Kii peninsula with a wonderfully preserved historic district that has yet to be discovered by the majority of visitors to Japan. In the past, the town functioned as a rest stop on the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage route, and it's from here that you will begin your own journey on this spiritual trail. In more recent times however, Yuasa is most famous for it's superlative contribution to Japan's culinary heritage, as the birthplace of soy sauce. Used as an ingredient, seasoning and condiment in myriad dishes, it's hard to imagine Japanese cuisine without this vital ingredient. During the booming Edo period, which began in the 17th century, there were over 90 soy sauce breweries operating in this prosperous town, and even today many of the buildings from the Edo and succeeding Meiji periods survive. Here you can spend a leisurely morning soaking up the atmosphere of these traditional streetscapes. Perhaps you might even want to sample a soy sauce ice cream!

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Onsen

Stay at Yunomine Onsen

This evening you will be staying in Yunomine Onsen, a quaint town nestled in a quiet valley surrounded by mountains, with a chance to purify yourself in the hot springs just as pilgrims walking the Kumano Kodo have been doing for centuries. You can even take a dip in a rare example of a UNESCO World Heritage designated bath - the Tsubo-yu is contained within a wooden hut perched in the middle of the river that runs through the village. If you're feeling peckish, you could even try an onsen tamago, eggs that have been cooked in the piping hot healing waters, before staying the night at one of the ryokan inns dotted around this intimate valley town.

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Walking Tour

Onigajyo

From Kumano-shi Station it's just a short walk to reach a stunning natural moment, the Onigajyo cliff walk, a 1.2km coastal path that hugs a spectacular rocky outcrop that juts out from the Shima peninsula. With the waves crashing below you, you can experience the thrill of traversing this path which winds its way through narrow openings in the cliff face while enjoying the view out to the vast ocean beyond. When you see the otherworldly shapes that have been carved into this landscape through millennia of erosion, it's not hard to see how this UNESCO designated site received its name, which means 'Demon Castle'.

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Boat Cruise

Tategasaki Cruise

A leisurely round-trip boat cruise of just over an hour will see you dipping in and out of the promontories past Onigajyo and up to Tategasaki, an impressive towering outcrop of basalt pillars that juts out into the sea. Your cruise will also take you into the magical Kumano Blue Grotto, only accessible by boat, in which the shimmering crystal clear cyan water and gentle lapping of the waves against the cave walls creates an enchanting otherworldly atmosphere that you are sure to remember.

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Walking Tour

Maruyama Terraced Rice Fields

Arriving at Maruyama Senmaida, you'll be greeted with the breathtaking view of over 1,000 terraced rice fields, rising in levels that climb the expansive mountainside of this deep valley, making use of every available spot of cultivatable land. Each season offers its own unique charms for enjoying this enchanting view; the shimmering water in the flooded paddies reflects the white clouds drifting across the azure sky in spring prior to planting, after which the scenery is transformed into a rippling landscape of deep green as the rice plants sway in the wind during the summer growing season. In winter the fresh white snow gleaming in the cold still air creates a sense of peace and the latent promise of future harvests. Taking in the beautiful view of this unique style of rice cultivation, you can feel the farming traditions that have sustained the lives of local people for generations.

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Shrine

Ise Jingu

Considered by most to be Japan's foremost center for Shinto worship, the Inner compound of Ise Jingu enshrines Amaterasu-Omikami, the great sun goddess, believed to be the mythical ancestress of the Japanese Imperial Family. The minimalist simplicity of the shrine creates a sublime sense of awe as visitors make their way along the wide boulevards leading to the main sanctuary. Unlike other Shinto shrines in Japan, where worshippers purify themselves before praying at specially constructed stone basins, as the Ise Inner Shrine devotees also have the chance to purify their hands by washing them at an area by the sacred Isuzugawa River which runs past the Uji Bridge at the entrance to the complex. A unique feature of the Ise Shrine's inner sanctuary is that the buildings are completely reconstructed every 20 years in an area directly adjacent to the previous buildings. The sense of mystery that you feel when visiting Ise Jingu is compounded by the fact that it's not possible to enter the inner sanctuary itself; visitors perform their supplications from a fenced area at the entrance to the inner sanctuary, with the shrine buildings themselves only just visible above the surrounding walls and trees. Ise Jingu is a great lesson in how showing just a tantalizing glimpse of something can create a more powerful impression than a full-on view!

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Food

Lunch

Arriving on the coast, the bracing ocean breeze is sure to whet your appetite for a lunch that highlights the fresh seafood for which this region is so famed. There are a variety of restaurants in the vicinity of Toba Station specializing in various delicacies such as Kaisendon - a type of rice bowl dish topped with morsels of fresh sashimi, fresh sushi, grilled fish, and of course oysters!

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Activity

Demonstration of Ama Divers (women shell divers)

Toba is home to the Mikimoto Pearl Island, where a new technique for the farming of oysters and the commercial cultivation of pearls was first developed during the late 19th century by the Mikimoto company founder Kokichi Mikimoto. Here you have the chance to watch the female Ama divers demonstrate the traditional way that pearls were harvested before the introduction of modern technologies. Diving without oxygen tanks in their unique all-white garb, make sure to listen out to the unique whistling sound made by the divers as part of the special breathing techniques they use that have been honed and passed down over generations. This sound has even been designated as one of the '100 Soundscapes of Japan' by the Ministry of the Environment.

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Hotel

Overnight at Nagoya Marriott Associa Hotel

After 5 days of hiking and exploring, what better way to round out your trip than to stay the night at the Marriott Associa Hotel, a luxury property directly connected to Nagoya Station. Arriving in the late afternoon, on checking in you can toast your success with a refreshing expertly crafted cocktail at the hotel's Estmare bar before enjoying a hearty and well-deserved feast for dinner at one of the hotel's six in-house restaurants; restaurant choices include French cuisine, Chinese dim sum, Japanese teppanyaki cooked right before your eyes, or buffet-style dining if you're feeling a calorie deficit after your hiking efforts! One thing's for sure, after soaking up the panoramic view of the bright lights of Nagoya from your room, you're sure to sleep well tonight. Have a lie in - you've earned it!

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