The Nakahechi Route of the Kumano Kodo by Ian Clyde
I first visited Japan as a backpacker in 1980. About 10 years later I had the opportunity to work in Tokyo for a year, by then having studied Japanese language at university. All in all, I have had quite an immersion in Japan and things Japanese, but until now, I had not had the chance to do any hiking in the countryside.
I have just returned from walking the Nakahechi Route, a 5-day slice of the ancient Kumano Kodo pilgrimage trail that goes the long way from Osaka to the revered Ise Grand Shinto shrine. Situated in the Wakayama mountains on the Kii Peninsula south of Osaka, the Nakahechi cuts across the lower part of the Kii, starting from the hamlet of Takijiri and finishing at Nachi waterfall, close to the seaside town of Kii-Katsuura. The walk was a great experience from beginning to end.
Day 1 was not a lot of kilometres but it was a lot of uphill, an early taste of the inevitable ascents (and descents) of walking in the mountains. My friends and I had GPS trail guides and old-style maps if the need arose, but with the remarkably good signposting along the trail itself, we rarely needed to follow the blue dot on the screen or consult the paper maps.
The Day 1 walk up to Takahara introduced us to abundant foliage, a surfeit of moss and the continuous presence of little shrines (Oji) and other signs of the age-old spiritual significance of the Kumano Kodo. Having ascended to Takahara, our homestay accommodation was back down another side of the range we had just climbed, but fortunately we did this transfer by car. Our homestay host was very hospitable, treating us to a dinner that combined elements of Japanese and Nepalese cuisine. The latter was due to the host’s connection with Nepal, which impressively has included raising enough money to fund two school buildings in a Nepalese village. It was at the homestay that we met two women from Alaska, Pam and Bonnie, who turned out to be like-minded souls and constant trail companions.
Day 2 saw us set off for the village of Chikatsuyu, but only after our amiable host doubled back to the homestay in her car to retrieve my hat and phone. The Japanese call forgotten items wasure-mono. One hears this word on trains and buses constantly in Japan, but clearly I didn’t! Anyway, Day 2 was a very pleasant 10 km stroll, wending our way up and down, sometimes along very narrow ridges with steep drop-aways on either side. I can’t say I heard a lot of birdlife or saw a lot of animals along this or the rest of the Nakahechi, but like anywhere in the natural environment, they tend to be active at dawn and dusk, which thankfully, was not when we were walking the trail.
What we did encounter all the way along the Nakahechi were stone steps and gnarled tree roots at every turn, which were picturesque, but you needed at least one eye on your feet to stay upright. I guess this was the perfect excuse to stop every now and then, to ‘breathe-in’ the landscape, or take a photo or both. The time passed happily and by mid-afternoon, just after the main street of Chikatsuyu came into view, we arrived at our very own Japanese cottage, complete with handsome tatami rooms and a lovely common area. Our affable hosts lived next door. They came and went seamlessly to ply us with dinner and breakfast and the obligatory bento box for lunch on the trail. I was able to try out some of my obscure Japanese lexicon on our hosts. Luckily for me, there was a national election looming later in the month, so a rare chance to put the word for Prime Minister (soori dai-jin) into the conversation without seeming like a real nerd.
In Chikatsuyu we visited the office of a walk operator and made ourselves known to the two young men who are based there, and chatted for a while over a cool drink, mixing up my halting Japanese with a smattering of English as garnish. Despite being a number of weeks into autumn, a cool drink was the order of the day, as the weather in this part of Japan was staying stubbornly warm and humid, more akin to summer conditions than fresh autumn days. The next morning the humidity had turned to rain, though it only lasted a few hours.
Day 3 was whatever you wanted it to be, starting from the township or skipping some km. There was a 24 km option, a 15 km option and a 5 km option, all designed to get us to the famous Hongu-taisha Shinto shrine, one of the most venerated in Japan. I took the middle road, avoiding the tramp through the outskirts of Chikatsuyu and also some of the rain.
As it turned out, the Day 3 walking was not as arduous as I had expected, and I found myself ahead of schedule at Hosshinmon-oji, with the sun shining. The walking on Day 3 was a bit of everything, from old forest to newish forest to lovely streamside paths and a bit of hamlet hopping into the bargain. On the way down towards the Hongu-taisha shrine, there is apparently a fabulous vista where one can see a giant torii gate in the distance - all that remains of the original Hongu-taisha, which got flooded and was reinstated at a respectful distance from the nearby river. Perhaps I was engaged in too much of an in-depth conversation with Bonnie - we did not see any sign for the said vista.
Never mind. The ‘new’ Hongu-taisha is impressive and feels like an oasis of calm tradition and spirituality. The calm was only broken by Pam, who was able to beat one of the normally off-limits temple drums. This is because she collected a ‘dual pilgrim’ award at Hongu-taisha. Pam had previously completed the whole 750 km of the ‘Camino Frances’ pilgrimage that starts in SW France and ends in Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and now she had completed the critical section of the Kumano Kodo. Sadly, we were not there for her drum roll - there was Kumano Kodo beer to be sampled in the late afternoon sunshine, before the bus to our hot springs Yunomine Onsen accommodation that night, called Shimo-Yunomine ryokan.
At Yunomine Onsen I was reunited with my luggage for the first and only time on the Nakehachi. This allowed some replenishment of my daypack before the luggage headed straight to Nara, my onwards destination in three days’ time.
Although I had arrived quite late at the ryokan (at least by Japanese standards), there was still time before dinner to luxuriate in the outdoor section of the hot springs – surely a quintessential Japanese experience. My friends and I then partook in a very traditional Japanese meal. It came with so many different (and sometimes unrecognisable) dishes that we were given a ‘meal mudmap’ to help us eat things in a vaguely logical order.
On Day 4 we set out to walk 13.2 km, which took us from Ukegawa (a short bus ride from Yunomine Onsen) to Koguchi. This part of the Nakehachi delivered 520m of up, and 500m of down, so at the end of the day, our net position was only 20m higher than when we set out! But such a charming way to attain that paltry 20m: sundry Oji shrines; standing stones carved with Japanese kanji characters; the almost invisible remains of old teahouses; winding stone-paved trails; moss-covered rocks; and alternating stands of tall timbers (including cedars and cypress) and more modestly sized deciduous trees, the latter frustratingly yet to reveal their autumn colours.
That night’s accommodation, Koguchi Shizen-no-ie, was actually a converted high school. We enjoyed large rooms, common washing and eating areas and the susurration of flowing water to lull one to sleep. Perhaps echoing the way a Japanese government school operates, there was a degree of regimentation and discipline in the way the place was run (eg. loudspeaker announcements for dinner), but I found it somewhat familiar. I say this because I visited a Japanese government school in Nara in 1980 when my sister was an exchange student.
Even so, Koguchi Shizen-no-ie is a lot more welcoming and less strictured than a typical Japanese high school. Be that as it may, there was a uniform of sorts – the ever-present heavy cotton yukata evening robe. It saves having to dress up for dinner, and was a welcome feature of all the accommodation we stayed at. I took every opportunity to wear the yukata as authentically as possible, but no-one would ever mistake me for a traditionally attired Japanese man ...
Day 5, the last day of the Nakahechi, brought more fine sunny weather and the prospect of 15 km of trail, featuring a tantalising 980m of ascent, but about the same of descent. It would take us over the Ogumotori-goe Pass and eventually down to the famous Nachi waterfall, under which the devout are meant to stand and recite sutras. Enroute to Nachi-san (as that area is known) we climbed a section of the trail known as the dogiri-zaka (literally, torso-breaking slope) which ascends unrelentingly up 500m without a flat section to speak of. I renamed it the ‘dog-of-a-slope’, though in truth I prefer going up to going down, as I am sure do many other walkers. With the Ogumotori and a few other passes under our belt, we then made our way down and down and more down, until finally we came in sight of the Nachi-taki waterfall (the tallest in Japan). Across from the waterfall lies side by side a gorgeous Buddhist temple (Seigan to-ji) and an equally fetching Shinto shrine (Nachi-taisha). This temple and shrine complex is where our Nakehachi walk officially finished.
The setting is sheer bliss, nestled in amongst steep mountainsides and terribly old cedars, almost as if the shrine and temple came first and the surrounding landscape followed thereafter. Ironically, the oft-photographed red three-storey pagoda that also graces the Nachi-san complex was undergoing some sort of renovation, and was shrouded from view. A Zen Buddhist monk would probably sit down patiently in front of the pagoda and wait for it to be revealed. Tempting as this might have been, we had a bus to catch to Kii-Katsuura, the modest seaside holiday town below Nachi-san, and reportedly home of the biggest tuna catch in Japan. That night at our harbourside ryokan we enjoyed a suitably traditional Japanese meal, without a mudmap to guide us but a pleasure all the same. True to the highly organised way of life in Japan, our ‘waitress’ that evening was determined we should not stay a minute past the end of the advertised dining schedule. While I found this a bit annoying, it is also the reason that in Japan, you can trust the trains and everything else to run on time.
The next morning we were able to whizz across the harbour in a local shuttle ‘turtle boat’ and take a splendid hot springs bath in a cave looking out to sea. Quite a treat and a lovely way to end the Kumano before boarding a train (which was perfectly on time!) back towards Osaka.
The Nakahechi Route of the Kumano Kodo combines impressive scenery, culture, cuisine, camaraderie and enough walking challenges to more than satisfy all modern ‘pilgrims’. I just hope I get the chance to do some of Japan’s other multi-day hikes.
Shintaro.
End of Day 1 at Takahara
The grand shrine, Kumano Hongu Taisha
Climbing to Ogumotorigoe Pass
Viewpoint known as the ‘3,600 peaks of Kumano’
Onsen bathing a feature of much accommodation on the Kumano Kodo
Our end destination, Kii-Katsuura, in sight