Day 13: From Koguchi to Nachikatsuura (aka Kii Katsuura)

Day 13: From Koguchi to Nachikatsuura (aka Kii Katsuura)

Weather: Perfect again, we’re on a roll now. Cool all day, from low to mid 60s

The school, aka our minshuku for the night:

Color coded bathrooms:

No pre-breakfast because we are up early to get our bags out for Jamie to send ahead to Ise (two days away). And, Jamie is doing the bag send-ahead early because he’s part of the group heading off to do the first part of the trail. The “we’re doing the whole thing” group is heading off by 6:45 (it turns out to be a bit later). Their portion of the trail this morning is unrelentingly up for 3 hours or so.

THB is NOT part of this group, he’s part of the group that is taking a taxi at 9ish to a spot most of the way up the hill. Seven (five plus two guides) leave and the remaining five eat breakfast at 7ish (minimalist fare), leisurely walk over to a convenience store to supplement the lunches provided by the inn (i.e., the school), and await our taxi ride.

Another way of doing the Kumano Kodo:

The taxi is a bit early, 

and off we go for an hour drive up the side of the mountain: a twisty gorgeous road that follows a rocky creek bed (with a bit of water) and then segues to mountain terrain.

We alight to an oasis: the tea house, now-unused and yet open to guests wandering by (in case of rain, a common occurrence here), jizus kept in a new small hut, and a great sign or two.  Three Aussies on gap year (THB is making this up, they look about 18) come up from the opposite direction, carrying minimal gear for their day hike, pause for maybe two minutes to use the WC, just long enough for us to ask them to relay to our early morning hikers still on the unrelenting uphill that we’ve arrived at the meet-up point safely. We find out they comply, their good kids! Oh, and they tell us their just completed uphill was very steep...that's our downhill coming as soon as we re-unite and eat lunch.

The "we do it all day long" part of the tour:

The uphill adventurers arrive, and we all have an early lunch, catch up on the news (well, this is the longest we’ve been separated during daytime in a week…3.5 hours!): yes it was unrelentingly up and the taxi ride was terrific (hmmmmm, maybe not the best news the taxi riders could’ve imparted).

Find the misspelling: 

The afternoon is mostly downhill, and mostly downhill of the type where you stare at your feet to make sure you stay upright. The half day hikers did around 5 miles, and we’re plenty tired and thankful that we did the taxi ride (and it was really pretty, something we can appreciate because we're not looking at our feet).

The first marker of the day

An "onion" which is a shape of rock rarely seen and common to this part of Japan and this hike

Imports have reduced logging in Japan as local trees are now almost worthless

Seen in the distance the last two days, the landmark that signifies we're nearing the end of the hike is seen close-up

Even steeper in person

The last 1/2 K marker of the trip

The only 100 meter marker of the trip

Just before the end of the day, we visit the Naichi Taisha shrine and get a good look at the tallest waterfall in Japan. Photo ops and ice cream, especially for the full day hikers!

We arrive in the port of Kii Katsuura and water taxi to the huge Hotel Nakanoshima. How big is the hotel?

Jamie takes a few minutes to describe it:

A soak indoors and outdoors for THB. Without his glasses, the indoors was just fog and the outdoors was dark sky.

Group dinner (as usual), on western style chairs and tables (not so usual).