Yakushima trip (May 17-21)

Yakushima is a small island out in the Pacific, 2 hours by boat south of Kagoshima. Its isolation from the mainland has allowed for distinct fauna and flora to flourish. For a place where it said to rain ‘35 days a month’, we lucked out having 4 straight days of beautiful sunny weather!

We rented a car for our 3 day stay, and stayed at a hostel in the southern part of the island.

The main activities to do on this island are hiking, hiking and…..well, more hiking. The main attraction is Jomon-Sugi, a cedar tree thought to be 7000 years old. We got a lot of conflicting information about how long a hike this particular trail leading to the tree would take, some saying 5 hours while others warned us it would take us 14 hours or more. We decided to find out for ourselves.

We woke up at 3:45am, out the door by 4:30am, arrived at the entrance to the hiking trail by 5:30am and started up at the very early hour of 6am. We made it back to the entrance at 4pm…it took us 10 hours!

The first 2 hours, we followed a levelled path along a train track (used many years ago to bring down lumber).

The next bit was a bit more challenging...

...though it wasn’t as much of a mountain climb as I thought it would be. There were many areas where wooden steps had been added. I found the repetitive motion of going up steps more difficult than trying to find your own path through the forest.

After about 5 hours, we made it to Jomon-Sugi!

Had it not been surrounded by a wooden fence to keep people away from it, I wouldn’t have thought it was any different from the other trees around.

We spent a good hour or so gawking at the famous tree, had lunch and rested before starting our way back down.

Once we got out of the ‘woody’ area of the climb, we still had the train track trail to follow back to the parking lot. The last 2 hour walk seemed interminable!!

Having completed the hike to Jomon-sugi, we had to capture the momeny we made it back to the car.

The next day, we got up at the bright at the early hour of 7:30am and went to Shiratani Unsuikyo Gorge. When we set off for this hike, I thought it was going to be more of a walk. Although this hike was shorter than the day before (a little over 5 hours in total), it turned out to be much tougher!

We walked through dense moss covered woods.

The last 10 minutes of this trail was a gruelling straight up climb to reach Taikoishi rock.

The view from the boulder was breathtaking… In the distance was Miyanoura-dake, the tallest peak. It felt like we were on top of the world. With nothing around the sides of the boulder, it also felt like you could easily fall to your death. The area where you could stand was quite small with only enough room to have maybe 15 people.

On our way back down, all three of us had aches and pain..

But we made it!

We met an interesting fellow who was a pilgrim from Shikoku travelling around Kyushyu. We gave him a ride back to town and wished him well. Before leaving the island, we ran into him several times. Guess that's how small an island it was..!

That night, we enjoyed a nice long soak in one of the hottest onsens (hot springs) I have ever been in. I don't think ever enjoyed soaking in an onsen as much as I did that night...

There are also some beautiful falls that can be found on the island.

We visited one called Ohko-no-taki before making our way to the port to start are long journey back home.

We definitely got our share of fresh air and exercice on this trip!