Day 4 of our Kumano Kodo trek was the ‘big climb’ of the trip. All our guide books stated that you must begin the hike before 8am despite the day only being 14km. After our experience of the steep hot climb on day 1 we were prepared for a hard day. That meant an early morning bus back to where we had finished our third day in Koguchi, and warnings to David and Alicia to pack plenty of water.
What we had not been concerned about was finding our way given that the last 3 days the route had not caused us any problems. Soon after starting, we realised we had probably been focused on the wrong thing. The morning was warm, but not uncomfortably hot and the uphill path shaded and not too steep. We did however miss the first turning and walked off the wrong direction down the road! Despite our erroneous detour and one deliberate detour (another due to landslides), we made good progress and even saw another two snakes.
We spent the morning steadily gaining height but the tree cover prevented us from seeing much of the views. After lunch near a hillside stream and a final uphill section, the trees suddenly parted to reveal a glorious view across the mountains and down to the sea we had left that morning.
From this point on we slowly descended into the valley until we entered the outskirts of the Kumano Nachi Taisha complex. The first thing we came across was a large abandoned playpark, which included the longest toboggan run any of us had ever seen! The temple includes a five storey pagoda overlooking the Nachi Falls (Japan highest waterfall), which is one of the best views on the whole trek.
We felt very accomplished that we had completed the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage! We rewarded ourselves with icecream (naturally) and headed down to the waterfall to collect our final stamp (and a few photos of course).
Then it was time to head back to Shingu for another evening of rugby (England v Argentina and Japan v Tonga – which was popular with the locals) before we said goodbye to David and Alicia (for now), ready to continue our journey south.
Claire and Gareth go travelling! 