23 March - Yabuhara to Narai over the Torii Pass

Breakfast was early this morning because we had to be transferred back to Kiso Fukushima to get to Yabuhara for our day's walk, and also had to send on our bags to Tokyo, meaning we'd be without them for one night. We were in Kiso Fukushima by 9am for the two train trips. For the first time we reserved seats for the main trains for today and tomorrow, as the trains are filling up as the tourist season gets underway. Until now we have seen few tourists, but numbers have been increasing, and the cherry blossoms were due.

We met a nice Aussie couple on the train, who turned out to be doing the same walk as us, and in fact we, the new Aussies and our group's couple walked together most of the day. The two women in our group were missing the last two day's walks in favour of an exhibition in Tokyo.

It was only a 6km walk today, 3km up to the Torii Pass and 3km down to Narai. There was a bit of slippy snow on the way up, and a particularly nice shrine at the top. This was unusual in that it was both Buddhist and Shinto. It had fabulous weathered rock kami, and a range of expressive Buddhist statues.

Looking down from the Torii Pass

Ontake Yohaijo Shrine, Torii Pass

Coming back down into Narai, we hadn't seen a bear, but did spot a Japanese serow, a type of goat-antelope which is Japan's national animal. It just stood in the trees for some minutes observing us before disappearing over a ridge. Our camera had been playing up ever since the wet day, and refused to cooperate at all from the morning, so we couldn't get a close shot of it.

A Japanese serow

Narai was our third well-preserved "post town". It was a little different architecturally to the other two, with the top storey of the houses overhanging the ground floor. We stopped for a good hot ramen noodle lunch in a little cafe. Most pleasant.

Narai post town

 

The weather had been getting progressively colder, and we saw it was -2 by the time we caught our first train out of Narai. We started on a local train for 50 minutes, onto a limited express for another 50, and finally a super shinkansen for another 40 minutes into Karuizawa.

Our shinkansen arriving

It was a bitter two kilometre walk through Karuizawa town to our hotel, stopping along the way to pick up some bakery items to save us backtracking in the morning for lunch provisions. The Tsuruyu Hotel proved to be pretty flash, again. We got as fast as we could in to the onsen, which was hot and very welcome.

Dinner had one of the most impressive menus yet, with fugu (poisonous blowfish) as an entree for the 11 courses. The fugu turned out to be clear flavourless rubber, with nothing to recommend it except the slight risk of being killed by toxins! The following courses looked OK, but just didn't have the flavour of any of the more simple establishments' offerings. To be honest, we were both looking forward to more ordinary meals such as ramen or udon noodles.

Without our laptop, we used our phones to sort out times for the following and last day of our trek, looking to an early start and a late-afternoon arrival in Tokyo.

22 March - Kiso-Fukushima to Kaida Plateau

The fifth day's walk was actually not on the Nakasendo, but on the Hida Highway, an old salt and medicine route. Instead of starting the walk straight away, we were taken in taxis to just below the Karasawa-no-taki waterfall. From there it was a climb through forest to the Jizo Pass.

We stuffed up from the start. Instead of taking a left from a bridge below the waterfall, we kept straight on the more obvious track but the incorrect one. We headed up the road to the pass where a sign pointed, but after quite some time we knew we'd messed up. The road and the track were going to join anyway, so we kept on up the road for a couple of kilometres. We should then have seen another turn off into the forest, but missed that too! It didn't make any difference, except that we had to trek through some filthy forestry sludge all over the road, necessitating a stop at an unexpected snowbank to clean our boots again.

We were clearly above the snow line, as there was plenty of snow about when we finally managed to get onto the forest track again. We'd only missed perhaps a kilometre of nice forest trail, but had walked perhaps twice that along the road to get to the same place.

The pass was freezing, with a keen wind blowing through it, so we didn't hang about. The track down through the trees was very pleasant, though a little slippery where snow had melted and refrozen.

We arrived into Kiso too early for lunch, so we went straight past a suggested cafe. This is an area known for Kiso horses, a particularly sturdy and ancient breed related to Mongolian steppe horses. They have huge round tummies, which is not pregnancy, but is the result of an extra-long intestinal tract adapted for the coarse grasses of the steppes. There's only 130 left and a farm we passed through has 30 of those and has a breeding program. This area grows buckwheat, for soba noodles.

Buckwheat drying racks, and mistletoe in the silver birches

We found another little cafe which had make-your-own coffee and tea for just 100 yen, so we settled in to the nice warm room and had a lunch of bits and pieces we'd brought with us.

We'd got ahead of our program again, so were able to catch a bus an hour earlier to the start of the next leg, a climb up to a viewpoint above the Nishino Pass. Reaching the foot of the climb we passed through great fields used for buckwheat, but fallow in winter.

Buckwheat fields

It was a solid climb up to the pass, and a very steep little grunt to the "observatory", but so worth the effort. The views were excellent, especially of Mt Ontake, a very snowy mountain opposite. Much of the time we were crunching through snow covering the trail, trying to keep in the soft stuff rather than slip on the harder more frozen patches. We rather enjoyed it.

Track up

Mt Ontake from the top

Plenty of snow on the way down

Over the other side and a quick trip down to Yamakanoyu Ryokan. Lovely to arrive at 3pm with plenty of time ahead to change clothes and have a very enjoyable relaxed onsen. Our room was probably the nicest yet.

Entering Kaida

Yamakanoyu Ryokan

Dinner was yet another feast, I suspect tomorrow will be the same. This one was distinguished by the host's own soba noodles being served, and also horse basashi (sashimi). 

21 March - Tsumago to Nojiri over the Nenouetoge Pass

This walk was to be our biggest day, up and over the Nenouetoge Pass from Tsumago to finish at Nojiri. It would start with a 6km hike to Nagiso, and at that point we'd have to decide whether or not to continue on the 15km over the pass - there were no options to shorten it once on the second leg.

We were not optimistic about the weather, as for days it had been suggesting rain for part of or all day. The weather people got it right, except that they thought there might be dry spells. There weren't!

We had only two possible trains to catch at the far end to get to our accommodation, at 3pm and 5:30pm. We really didn't want to miss the first as up to 2.5 hours shivering in wet gear at Nojiri didn't sound remotely enticing. Based on our normal speed of 5km/h, we should have been OK for the earlier train, provided we didn't lose time due to rain, the time taken to read track directions, or getting lost, all of which were distinct possibilities. A young American couple at the inn were also prepared to do the trip in the rain, one of our couples was undecided, and the other two weren't going to.

We managed a nice early departure at 8:20am, half an hour ahead of our suggested schedule already, though we lost 10 minutes in the first few kilometres working out what clothes worked for heat and cold, and how to keep the paper pages of directions vaguely dry while still being able to consult them easily. I'd downloaded some GPX tracks, but they were useless, as I suspect they'd been done by a cyclist following roads which more or less paralleled the Nakasendo, rather than walkers actually on it.

Six kilometres in at Nagiso, we decided that things were going OK, and we would continue. We were already 2 hours ahead of the suggested schedule for the 5:30 train. The rain hadn't let up, but we felt fine and we couldn't see any good reason to forgo what should be a good day, particularly if the weather improved a bit as expected. We bought some bananas and sandwiches on our way out of Nagiso to fuel us over the pass.

Trail to Nagiso

As soon as we started on the forest leg, we were faced by many "Watch out for bears" signs, including some more recent ones showing mothers with cubs. We knew this was an area where they were often seen, so I clattered my poles on rocks for the next 4 hours, and rang the anti-bear bells when available. It was a steady climb up towards a picnic shelter.

Bear poster

The directions were pretty tricky, and not well-written, and were further messed up by a detour for works on the road and track at one point. We asked a man at the roadworks and he confirmed we were on the right track, but there was a disconcerting 2 or 3 kilometres with no visible signs, when previously they'd been very visible and frequent. The rain made it very tricky to follow the route guide. We had to use an umbrella to give shelter from the raindrops, and because it was dark under that, we had to resort to our misted-up glasses to read it. The photos of waypoints were small to start with, and the paper got wrinkled. Not easy. We more or less gave up on the route guide and just followed the Nakasendo Way signs. At some point we finally recognised where we were on the guide, and got back to using it as confirmation of the signs.

Anway, we arrived, sodden and steaming, at the rest station short of the pass at 12pm. The sandwiches, water and banana did the trick. We chatted briefly to an Adelaide couple doing the Oku Tours version of our self-guided walk before they headed away. Our raingear had worked well, but I'd got totally sodden underneath the jacket from sweat on the uphills, so we cooled off far too quickly for comfort. At some point our camera gave up the ghost presumably with too much water in the wrong places, so we were a little short of photos. Taking photos with a sodden phone isn't easy.

Houses along the way

We knew by now that we would have heaps of time for the early train, so the pressure was clearly off. Away we went again, to come across a fresh poo on the path that had to be an omnivore's - only a bear seemed likely. A few minutes after that we both heard a roaring sound across the valley, looked at each other and sped up! Nothing like a bear to help you catch a train.

Damp!

Mad hikers

From the top of the pass some half an hour later, it was a quick hour back down to Nojiri. We arrived at 10 to 2, just over an hour ahead of the train, and half an hour earlier than we had aimed for. The only time we got lost was in trying to find the train station in Nojiri, but we had plenty of time to sit in a little cafe and warm up with a coffee and a hot chocolate, and dry out a little. There was a lovely cheerful host at the cafe, and then a local man came over and gifted us a couple of keyrings with tiny origami animals inside them. Very touching.

Sitting round at the train station was a different story, as it was unheated, and we were very glad to get on the steaming hot train for Kiso Fukushima.

We can't explain the spiralled clear tape either

We hadn't seen the young couple at all, despite them leaving ahead of us, so had a little concern that they'd got lost. As it turned out, we were the only ones brave or foolhardy enough to have done the full trip. It had been a really interesting and exciting day - a lot of fun despite, or perhaps because of, the bad weather.

A quick 2km walk from the train station at Kiso-Fukushima and we arrived at the Iwaya Inn, all dripping wet but very pleased with how the day had gone considering the abysmal weather. It never let up until we got to our accommodation when the sky began to lighten up a little. We stripped off our clothes, popped on the yukata and headed straight for the onsen on the roof. Bliss! It was so nice to heat up and to relax our legs, in our separated male and female onsens of course.

Dinner was just as elaborate as previous nights, with course after course arriving. They take over an hour to get through. Delicious, but I think we are close to reaching the point when a simple bowl of soba noodles is beginning to look rather inviting. We had kept ourselves nice and trim until now, but there's no amount of walking that can compensate for the food on offer. We are going to have to start leaving food on the dishes.

20 March - Nakasendo Way Day 3, Nakatsugawa to Tsumago

This was a day to remember. It included two of the three best-preserved towns on the Nakasendo Trail, and they really were lovely.

We knew it was a reasonably easy day, and we got away about 9:30. The weather was exceptionally mild, far warmer than any other day so far in our Japan trip, and within a few hundred metres we were stopping to change to short sleeve shirts and no top layers. Until now we have worn long shirts, a merino or polarfleece jacket, a down jacket, and often yet another jacket on top, capped by a wooly hat.

We passed through fields and houses, then a sweet forest shrine.

Forest shrine

First major stop for the day was the town of Magome. Quite apart from the well-preserved (or restored) houses, there was an excellent cafe and a competent barista, who was able to provide us with an espresso and a flat white respectively. The town was full of nice little shops selling locally-made products. It is a nice feature of Japan that few tourist areas inflate their prices, and we did take advantage and buy a few items to take home.

Magome town, cafe to the left

Magome town

As we left Magome, the views were superb - across beautiful cypress forests to the snow-capped mountains beyond, with barely any human activity visible. A steady but gentle climb took us up and over the Magome Pass.

Views from above Magome

Spring is coming along nicely

Ring the bell to scare off bears - really

Magome Pass

Just over the pass was a free rest and tearooms staffed by volunteers who hand out cups of tea to passing travellers. This had featured on Joanna Lumley's Japan series, which had been one of the catalysts for us coming to Japan. We enjoyed our tea, then sat down to lunch on some food we'd bought at Magome.

Tea room at the Magome Pass

Lovely water trough there

From the Magome Pass it was all downhill to our inn a little short of Tsumago. We made a short detour to some waterfalls, but otherwise just enjoyed the pretty track through the trees. At the Maruya Inn we dropped off our day packs and continued along to visit Tsumago. Although we'd pass through it again the following day, that day was going to be long, and we didn't want to hold ourselves up, hence the early visit. Tsumago was the first town to realise that once the Meiji period started, the town was going to fade away because of better alternative transport routes such as rail. They began to look after their buildings and set rules to ensure it remained original, and thus it became the tourist town it is today.

Forest path

This little toilet in the middle of nowhere still had a heated toilet seat with all the gadgets

Tsumago post town

Like most of the other Nakasendo Way "post towns", Tsumago is a strip of buildings lining the road on both sides. In Tokugawa Shogunate times nobles were forced to spend every second year in Edo (Tokyo) and thus there was a constant stream of daimyo and their huge entourages needing to be put up, fed and bathed. There were vast numbers of inns, horse handlers, teahouses and so on, and they are still very obvious today.

We visited the building once owned by the number two man in town, now a museum, and had a very helpful  tour from a lovely guide. She told us of the emperor's visit in the 1800s, and showed us a table he'd taken tea at, which the owner had recorded in script under the tabletop.

Tabletop recording the emperor's visit

Amazing route guides

Model of the town

Along the road at Tsumago

Back to our inn, a nice wash and tub bath, then again a full-on dinner.

19 March - Nakasendo Day 2 Ena to Nakatsugawa

Our first real day on the Nakasendo started rather well. The breakfast was even more than we expected, maintaining the standard set at last night's feast. Sorry to keep posting food comments and photos, but it really must be a highlight of everyone who visits Japan. Eating a fried egg with chopsticks was a challenge, and good for building skills.

A rather good breakfast

We knew today was going to be a reasonably long day, 18km minimum, but we couldn't get away early because the museum we wanted to see wasn't open on Mondays, yesterday. So we arrived outside the doors at 9:15 for a 9:30 opening, and were let in early enough to check out the shop. We found a nice set of Hiroshige prints of the Nakasendo that we will laminate for placemats. The museum had some lovely prints of various places, and a full set of the 69 stations of the Nakasendo.

Hiroshige Museum, Ena

What was lots of fun was being able to make a couple of woodblock prints ourselves using blocks, ink and paper supplied.

We were away on the walk by 10am. It took us a wee while to get used to managing the spiral-bound route guide, the supplemental printed pages, the camera, enjoying what was around us, and managing to keep moving all at the same time!

The first part of the walk was 12 km to Nakatsugawa, mostly through semi-rural, semi-urban back roads. Much was paved with the fawn and white stone chips which made direction-finding unnecessary, but other parts took a bit of checking in the route book. There was a constant flow of little statues, distance markers, mini-shrines and information panels, unfortunately mostly only in Japanese. There are still many old wooden Edo-era houses, shops and other old buildings along the route.

Some of the private gardens are superb

There are still many Edo-era buildings along the way

We rolled up in Nakatsugawa at 12:30, rather earlier than we'd expected, having averaged 5km/h despite pauses for photos, sightseeing and route-checking, so quite a decent pace. Our book recommended a grilled eel restaurant for lunch, so that's what we did. My only previous memories of eating eel were oiliness, but this was thoroughly nice. Very well-grilled with a sweet sauce, and no sign of oiliness whatsoever.

Public edict board on leaving Nakatsugawa

Looking out across Ochiai

After lunch the path become more rural and interesting. Instead of being more or less level, it had some nasty little steep pitches. The last couple of kilometres were lovely - on narrow tracks through trees, with the last kilometre on original cobbles.

Beautiful curtain waterfall

Original Edo cobbled path

Dinner. What can I say. We are being spoiled...

Dinner for one

Our walk guidebook

General Observations

It seems a good idea to note down a few general observations since we arrived in Japan a few weeks ago...

We have seen very few people smoking, though it still appears to be permitted in some restaurants, bars and designated public places. We've seen just two people vaping, one a tourist.

Similarly, we've seen very very few cats or dogs, though I did spot a monkey at one of the temples. No worries about stepping in effluent here, unlike France! In fact the footpaths are spotless. There is no littering, and signage even tells you not to eat while walking on the footpath.

We are definitely the object of some interest/amusement/bewilderment. The number of Europeans we had seen before we arrived in Kyoto we could count on our fingers. Takamatsu, and the places we had ventured to on day-trips from it, are off the tourist trail, but even in Kanazawa there were very few non-Asian tourists. 

The toilets here are a real treat. We've got used to heated seats, and they are rather nice! The toilets everywhere typically include all kinds of spray jets, complete with variable pressure, variable heating of the seat, music (soft or loud) and/or trickling water to disguise any other noises. Playing with the buttons can be quite a surprising experience.

Everyone is unfailingly polite and helpful. When you are handed any receipt, paper money, bill, purchase or card it is done with two hands, joined and palms upwards. Everyone bows. When the train ticket collector walks through the carriage, he turns and bows to the people in the carriage before exiting into the next carriage. On the skifield the attendant assisting skiers onto every chairlift will welcome you, and another will wish you well when you alight from the seat. They must say the same greeting thousands of times every day. 

Taxi drivers, bus drivers, train drivers  and the like all wear uniforms, complete with military-style hats and white gloves. The school children also look very regimental in their uniforms, especially the boys. 

We thought that bonsai applied to trees and other plants that had been nurtured and trained to be mini-sized but in fact bonsai training is undertaken on very large trees as well. We saw this on a large scale in the gardens in Hokkaido, but it is everywhere. Many dwellings have a small space set aside for a mini-garden, and most of these have bonsai plants of various shapes and sizes.

I'm tall here! I am taller than perhaps 95% of the women and possibly 80% of the men. I could stay here longer...

We are finding it very cheap to eat at the local eateries. It is easy to get a soup or noodle dish for say NZ$8 or you can get a multiple dish setting for NZ$10-15. They are invariably very tasty and we are particularly enjoying the udon noodles, which are very chunky and filling.

It is very easy to get around using public transport. The trains normally run precisely on time and the bus networks are extensive. Food stalls are everywhere and many sell bento box meals. Lines of vending machines permeate the urban areas, selling every type of drink imaginable, hot or cold. You seem never more than 50 metres away from one, and prices are very reasonable, perhaps half or less that of New Zealand.

For whatever reason, we have seen very few motorcycles. Perhaps it is because of taxes, perhaps because there is such a huge usage of small kei cars here, but definitely in part because there is a very high number of cyclists. Takamatsu was particularly thick with cyclists. It's been very interesting to see large parking areas for cycles next to the train stations (instead of car parking), and we've even seen a few places with cycle stacking. The bikes are typically city bikes, very low-tech, cycled slowly and carefully by teenagers up to the elderly. No helmets are worn.

We've become used to taking our shoes on and off every time we go into a temple. It's also required going into a few specialist shops. To our surprise, it's also compulsory to take shoes off when going into any fitting room, and shoes can't be cast off willy nilly on the floor outside your cubicle - they have to be put tidily together and placed facing outwards!

18 March - Kyoto to Nagoya Castle and Ena, Nakasendo Day 1

On our way to our Nakasendo Way walk! The train conveniently required a stop at Nagoya, a large industrial city with few sights but a recent full reconstruction of the Nagoya Castle palace rooms. These had been burnt at the end of WWII, but fortunately complete records remained from the 1600s when the rooms were first built, and detailed photographs from the late 19th century completed what was needed for a perfect reconstruction using original techniques and materials.

The castle itself - a concrete reconstruction undergoing major changes in 2019

It was strange in a way being in a brand new building, and clearly such, but built perfectly as it would have been when first built in 1615. The lack of aging and the bright fresh colours seemed all wrong. The rooms were essentially reception and living rooms for the nobles of the time, and the quality of colour, detail, carving and fixtures was very high. It must have been a fabulous time to live for those at the top of the social order.

There were gardens too, but we've been spoilt by already seeing 5 of Japan's top 10.

Best blossom yet

Heading back to the station, we found ourselves in a restaurant-free area, so bought a bento box instead for our train journey. We arrived at 3pm in the little ordinary town of Ena, the 49th post town of the Nakasendo Way. Out the station door and 100 metres later we found ourselves walking for the first time on the Nakasendo Way. It was pretty obvious - the road is given a special finish with tan and white stones flecking the surface of the seal, and big plaques let into it a regular intervals. We were delighted to find that the bridge on the way to our inn was decorated with Hiroshige paintings from his series illustrating the Nakasendo Way. He was a very gifted and very prolific artist.

Our first steps on the Nakasendo Way

Bridge decorated with Hiroshige paintings

We appeared to be the first to check in of 6 who will be sharing our self-guided walk, the others being another couple about our age, and a pair of older women, all from Sydney. They seem very nice, though there doesn't appear to be much opportunity yet to chat. Our little room was pleasant, with a nice view onto a garden. A bit of a drag having to change from outdoor shoes to slippers, then outdoor sandals again to get to the room, especially as all the sandals were far too small for my wide feet! Unbelievably, the host was the 16th generation of innkeepers for the Ichikawa Inn, with mother and grandmother still helping.

I should describe our walk. We are walking 6 days of the Nakasendo Way, one of the ancient routes between Edo (now Tokyo) and Kyoto, doing the trip self-guided through Walk Japan. The company provides a very detailed guide, with route instructions and points of interest described. Our main bags get ferried each day to our destination, while we just take daypacks with warm clothing and water. Each day has somewhere to find lunch, and morning and evening meals are provided by the inn we sleep in.

Our room at the Ichikawa Inn, Ena

Footwear changes whenever you meet wooden floors, tatami mats, and again going into a toilet.

Once settled in we headed back into the town for Karen to find a coffee and me to get some gear from a nice Uniqlo store. Karen's coffee ended up being a make-do one for a vending machine, yet again a problem finding espresso, but it's not an issue, just a good reason to wander around some more and see what we happen to come across on the way.

At 6pm we all sat down in pairs to have our meal. Wow! Eleven dishes I think. The highlights were some perfect sashimi, a hotpot to dip wagyu beef into, tempura, a delicious gratin dish which included sake paste (just a whiff of alcohol left in it) and a lemon pannacotta. It took a full 90 minutes. We adjourned directly to a bath room where the two of us were able to bathe together (not always possible) for a good soak.

The start of a veritable banquet, eaten while dressed in our Japanese evening wear.

Bath time