The day started early as we have an epic 8 hour hike ahead of us!
We started from the Kumano Hongu Taisha grand shrine. This is one of the three great shrines of Kumano collectively known as the Kumano Sanzan.
Along the side of the shrine is a small path that leads towards the Kumano Kodo trail. The Kumano Kodo trail is a very long network of trails through the Kii mountain range. It is listed as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Pilgrimage routes. The 8 hour hike we are attempting is only a fraction of it. We start and end at Kumano Hongu Taisha.
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| End of the path beside the shrine. If you are facing the shrine, this path is on the left. |
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| Source : http://www.tb-kumano.jp |
The first leg of the hike is from Kumano Hongu Taisha all the way up to Funatama-jinja. This is marked by the pink X in the picture above. I liked this part of the hike. It weaves through a small village so the view of the hike alternates between gorgeous trees and mountains to beautiful little private homes and farms. There are more proper stops on this first leg.
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| Passing through small town |
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| Random home with er.. modern well? |
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| Private garden with a view |
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| Happy cute little hikers! |
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| Nice private garden |
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| Random unmanned stall. Honor system |
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| Clean and nice simple stop where we had lunch. |
I do not often hike in cold weather so it was a little annoying for me. As the hike goes on it gets warmer and the heavy jacket becomes an annoying burden. I wanna take it off but, then how do I carry it, it's too big to fit in the backpack, too heavy to just carry in my hands. In the end had to just settle with having to hike in a jacket-shaped wet sauna prison. And then when I take a little break and it gets too cold again then, suddenly I love my heavy jacket again.
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| Source : http://www.tb-kumano.jp |
On the second leg of the hike, the views were nice but I felt it was less impressive than the first leg. Here we go through forests with endless trees. Parts of the trail were messier and we also passed several abandoned buildings. But still a very nice hike, just less varied views and no nice proper stops as compared to the first leg.
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| Abandoned tea house |
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| Yunomine Onsen. A little hut on a river. |
After hours of hiking, we finally reached Yunomine Onsen. That's one thing I did not try in this trip, the famous Onsens. The thought of being completely naked and possibly having to suffer through views of flappy birds did not appeal to me.
From here it was another hour of hiking and we are back to the town.
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| Back to town! |
A short walk across the small town and finally we did it! Back to the car, and finally free of the sauna prison reeking of sweat.
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| Salvation!!! |
Headed home immediately and took a nice hot bath. Quick dinner at the nearest place possible and back home to lie down for the rest of the night. Dinner was good, was just a random restaurant near our AirBnB but I guess the standard of restaurants here are pretty high. Tiringggg day, but we did it! 8 hour hike woohoo!
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