Kumano Kodo - Day 2

Sep 19, 2023
4 min read

Wednesday August 30, 2023 - from the itinerary: Today you will continue across the Kumano Kodo and today's route will also be a little longer than yesterday's. Today, in hopefully fine weather, you will walk about 13 km to Nonaka-no-Shimizu near Tsugizakura-oji. After about halfway, you will have the opportunity to take a break at a kiosk, including a rest area. Be careful not to slip on the numerous steps down the mountain. Afterwards, enjoy your time at your accommodation in the midst of Japanese nature on the mountains of Wakayama.

Hiking time: 6–8 hours (13 km)

Tonight's Inn is called - Minshuku

Day 2 of the Kumano Kodo is from markers 18-30. It's a bit longer than on the schedule because from Takahara it's about a mile before Hisohara-Oji - the actual start of the day.

I was up at 5 and the sky was clear - no mist. The clouds came in around 7, so I could see the "the village in the mist" and the rain started.

Breakfast was quite nice. It started with a fruit course that included yogurt and then a combo plate with bread, salad, bacon

During breakfast the rain really started to come down and eventually turned into a lighter rain when I left at 8:30.

In general today’s walk was easier than yesterday’s, although longer - 8.5 miles today. Parts of the walk were magical and away from the roads and all sound.

There were some shelters along the way, but they were closed. Glad I didn't need the bathroom.

I picked up 5 stamps today: daikon-oji, Jujo-oji, Osakamoto-oji, Gyuba-doji, and chikatsuyu-oji It was difficult to keep them dry as it rained the entire day - sometimes quite hard, like at the very end of the day. I was soaked to the skin from the rain by the time I got to my Inn for the night. When the inn-keeper showed me my house (I had the run of an entire local house), he said that with this type of weather leaches are very common (thank goodness I wore gaiters) and he had an anti-tick treated bucket which is where he wanted my pack to stay. Luckily I didn’t see any ticks or leaches. Video of the house is below.

Highlights of the day. The uphill outside of Takahara is called the Old Inn road because it was once lined with inns - there were still a number of them along the way. There was a place to see ponies, but that inn was closed and, although I saw the stables, there were not ponies. Not much to take photos of.

There were a number of frogs and toads throughout the day. At the guardian statues of Koshin and Dainichi, I saw the biggest toad of the day. Here are a number of toad/frog photos and fungus photos. There were even small fresh water crabs - not sure where they came from - one of the streams?

The Daimon-oji was a bit of a disappointment. Daikon-oji means a massive gate here marking a boundary to a sacred area according to diaries from the 12-13th centuries, but now there was just a small shrine. Here are pictures around this area.

Near waymark 14 is Koban Jizo which was a small shrine established by the locals in 1854 after a pilgrim was found deceased with an old coin in his mouth.

Woodpecker before marker 15 at an area that had been washed out and re-built. I couldn’t get it identified on Merlin, but it was definitely a woodpecker.

The highest point of the day was at 680 meters at the Uwadawa Jaya tea house remains, but there were no remains to see. I was going to have lunch here, but there was no breeze, no place to sit and it was quite buggy.

As the trail started to descend the breeze picked up, the rain had let up and I found a log to sit on, so stopped for a brief 15 minute lunch. Lunch was mostly rice, a small sausage, an egg sushi sort of thing and some pickles. I also finished up 3 rice cakes I had left over.

I took the side trail to see the three-fold moon viewpoint. The legend says that at the viewpoint the person saw 3 moons and the 1 moon ascended in the night sky. The trail leading to the viewpoint was rather steep and there was nothing to see at the top.

There was an interesting side trail to see the Gyuba Doji with several statues. One of them is of former emperor Kazan riding a horse and a cow. And a statue of En no Goya, the 7th century founder of Shugendo behind this and behind these two was a 12th century Hokyo-in Stupa. A lot to see at one stop.

After this the trail descends into the town of Chikatsuyu where there is another shrine by the same name.

Just outside of town it is possible to do a small loop to see the cemetery of the Nonagase Family which is made up of 13th century headstones that were found in a cave near the town - hidden to protect them from being destroyed after the rulers changed. The locals brought them into this cemetery when they were found.

At this point the rain poured down and luckily it was only about a mile to my accommodation for the night.

Here is a video of the house I was given for the night. This is a traditional Japanese farmhouse.

2 Taiwanese ladies were also staying here, but we are the only guests

Dinner had some wonderful food. I especially liked the tempura. The innkeeper, whose name I never did understand, made the local plum wine he made himself- aged 2 years. There was also plum salt. The tea was called shenzoka (or chinzoka) which was green tea with partially cooked brown rice.