At the orientation meeting at Tanabe we were given a wide variety of information. Maps, accommodation information, bus timetables, ….
Today’s hike was relatively simple, a warm up for the next couple of days. The bus took us to the shrine at Hongu Taisha
And we had a trek from there along the KUMANO KODO to Yunomine Onsen. It was short ((about 3.5 km) mostly up and then a bit down but gave us a good flavour of what of the conditions we could probably expect
Yunomine Onsen is a small town with a natural hot spring at its centre. So it has a background sulphur smell most of the tjme.
We are staying at Ryoken Adumaya, a very traditional ryoken. Here’s our room
Dinner was served in the room – three courses of completely traditional Japanese food
After which the table was removed and replaced with futons.
Tomorrow’s hike is longer – about 12km and will take about 6 hours. So we need to be up and out early. We have a short bus ride to the trail head before our hike to Koguchi.
We were both awake before 6.00. The futons were being retrieved at 6.30 so that the room could be prepared for breakfast.
We needed to catch the bus at 8.00 and had to have breakfast, check out, organise luggage transfer and collect our lunch boxes before then.
Breakfast arrived promptly.
Yet more traditional Japanese food. Some of which we loved and some of which we were less sure about. Neither of us were keen on this tofu hotpot
Everything went incredibly smoothly and once I had picked up our packed lunches we were good to go
Next update from about 13 km away then
Pearl Blog 3 