Day 9: Hosokute - Magome

Distance covered: 39.2km
Weather: Fine

I was woken several times during the night. Not many cars pass Daikokuya, but when they do they make the entire building shake. So I'd wake when I heard a car approaching, then there'd be this rattling and shaking, and then I'd hear the car drive off into the distance.

We got up at 5.30am and were called down for breakfast at 6.15am, 15 minutes earlier than scheduled. As you may have guessed, I'm not a great fan of traditional Japanese breakfasts (I always eat Western style in the morning if given the option), but this one I enjoyed just as much as dinner the night before. The yoghurt and berry dish was particularly delicious. In fact I started getting cravings for yoghurt and fruit after eating it. I had yoghurt and fruit for breakfast whenever I could, and I'd sometimes buy a pottle of yoghurt with fruit at a convenience store and eat it in my room at night for dessert.

We set off at 7am and found ourselves walking through the mist with the early morning sun poking through the trees alongside the roadway. The section of the Nakasendo from Mitake to Oi is the most remote part of the Nakasendo as it exists today, with no railways or major highways in the vicinity. The scenery was lovely, and the section of ishidatami stone paving (discovered as recently as 1973) leading up to the top of Biwa Toge was perhaps my favorite of the entire journey. We stopped after an hour and a half for a short break, then pressed on over the 13 passes (Jusan Toge), which were more like 13 gentle rises and falls in the road. The man we met at Daikokuya said that these passes weren't actually necessary but were added to the route to dissuade people from making the journey to Edo.

A while later we passed the Nakasendo Golf Course, a reminder that we were getting closer to "civilization" again. While walking alongside the golf course, we heard a loud thwack in the trees above us. A moment later a golf ball landed on the pathway no more than a couple of metres in front of us. We were both astounded. Erik took a couple of photos as evidence, then picked up the ball and threw it back onto the course. Unfortunately he threw it in the opposite direction from which it came.

We passed one lone walker on the trail before making the descent into the post-town of Oi, which is now a sizable city called Ena. We arrived there at 11.30am, and after lunch we decided to pay a quick visit to the Hiroshige Museum of Art, where there was an exhibition of prints from the 69 Stages of the Kisokaido series. We didn't get away from Ena until around 12.45pm.

The next few kilometers into the town of Nakatsugawa were pretty easy going. We stopped at Nakatsugawa for a coffee before pushing on to our final destination for the day: Magome. We had to tackle a couple of steep climbs before dropping down into the town of Ochiai, but the views during the descent were lovely. From Ochiai we had to go uphill again for a few kilometres. It was early evening, and the light was fading, but our spirits were lifted when we turned around and saw a beautiful sunset across the valley below us.

The last stretch, which included a section of ishidatami, seemed endless. Just when I was sure the town of Magome was around the next corner, we'd see a sign telling us there was 2km to go, then 1km, then 500m. We eventually arrived at the bottom of Magome at 5.35pm, and phoned the ryokan to tell them we were on our way. Unfortunately we then had to climb halfway up the steep main street to get to our accommodation.

The room was smaller than at Masuya, but the bath was great and dinner was nice. We even had the energy to have a long chat to a couple from Melbourne seated at the next table (we were the last ones to leave the dining room). My legs felt pretty good. I felt confident about the following day's walk, which, although it was going to take us over some steep terrain, was just 20km long (I'd double-checked to make sure this time).

Day 8: Ota - Hosokute

Distance covered: 24.0km
Weather: Fine

I got up at 6am and we were down in the restaurant having breakfast shortly after 7am. We left at around 8am. The first leg of the day's journey was flat, and included our first crossing of the Kiso River. This was a bit hair-raising, as there was no footpath on the bridge and quite a few trucks and other vehicles crossing at the time. So we waited until there was a break in the traffic and walked across as quickly as we could.

Over the other side we met a 65-year-old man who was walking the Nakasendo from Tokyo on his own. He had previously done the famous pilgrimage on the island of Shikoku, which involves visiting 88 temples and other sacred places connected with Kobo Daishi. He was extremely friendly and full of energy.

Further down the road, while resting at a shrine near Fushimi, we struck up a conversation with a woman who called herself Chami who was taking photos of the shrine. Aware that we were about to head into a wilderness area, we enquired about lunch places, and Chami offered to take us in her car to a restaurant called Daichi no Megumi. However, it was still too early for lunch, plus this would have infringed our "no wheeled transport while walking the Nakasendo" policy, so we declined her kind offer.

Soon after that we met another man who was walking the entire Nakasendo in 13 days (compared to our 22). Although quite a bit younger, he was equally as friendly as the 65-year-old, and gave us some useful information on the road ahead. It was turning into a day of numerous encounters with friendly people.

We had planned to have lunch in Mitake, but it was only 11.15am when we arrived there, plus there wasn't much in the way of lunch places, so we walked on and eventually came across a coffee shop that had quite an extensive lunch menu. I had fish and Erik had mushroom spaghetti with salad.

We left Mitake around 12.30am and soon left the main road and the flat behind us as we followed a succession of winding country lanes and mountain trails into the hills. Along the way we passed the village of Saito. I had read about this village and the Japanese guardian deity there that was found to have actually been a representation of the Madonna and Child, and was keen to see this statue if it still existed. I asked directions from a local farmer (a friendly chap who also gave us some persimmons), but what we came across was a rather garish and very modern statue of the Virgin Mary. There were some other smaller statues behind it, so I took a couple photos of these just in case one was the deity in question.

We pushed on, and after climbing up and down two more hills we arrived in the small town of Hosokute at around 3.30pm. We soon found Daikokuya, the old ryokan built during the Edo period, and were greeted by the charming young innkeeper. We went through the routine of confirming times for dinner (6pm) and breakfast (6.30am), then went down for a bath.

While waiting for dinner, I was looking over the map of the following day's route as usual when I realized something was wrong. I'd reckoned on a distance of 25.4km, but looking at the map it seemed a lot further. I added up the distances, then added them up again, then got Erik to add them up. There was no escaping it. It wasn't 25.4km. It was 39.2km! And it was far from flat.

Once we'd gotten over the initial shock of this unfortunate discovery, we began discussing how we might get out of the situation. The day after the following day was relatively short, so one option was to change our accommodation and stay somewhere a few kilometers closer to where we presently were. But doing this at such a late stage would entail paying a cancellation fee at the original place. Another option was to walk as far as we could and then take a taxi or bus the rest of the way, going back by bus or taxi the following morning to pick up where we left off. In the end, however, we decided we could walk 39.2km if we left early enough and kept our break and lunch times to a minimum.

Despite this setback, we enjoyed our time at Daikokuya. Dinner and breakfast were wonderful - probably the best meals we had on the entire trip. The evening meal featured a variety of fish and vegetable dishes, including broiled ayu (a popular river fish), gomadofu (sesame tofu), tempura, and homemade tsukemono (pickles), followed by a dessert of fig.

There was just one other guest staying at Daikokuya that night, a retired company executive who was walking the Nakasendo from Tokyo. We had a good talk with him, during which he mentioned a small museum dedicated to the Nakasendo in the posttown of Oi. It was run by a retired geography teacher, who financed the museum himself and also carried out research on the original route of the Nakasendo. We weren't due to pass Oi for another week or so, but we made a note of this and decided to visit this museum if we had time.

A funny thing happened soon after we arrived. Like many towns in Japan, Hosokute has a loudspeaker system over which they broadcast public announcements at regular times during the day. At 4pm the first announcement started, but as soon as it did a dog on a nearby property started howling, and continued to do so for the entire duration of the public announcement. It was impossible to make out what the announcement was about. Then as soon as the announcement stopped, the dog stopped howling. We thought this was hilarious. At 5pm there was another announcement, and sure enough the same dog howled throughout that one as well.

Day 7: Gifu - Ota

Distance covered: 26.7km
Weather: Partly cloudy

Thinking we had a big day ahead, we got down early for breakfast at 6.30am and aimed to get away by 7.15am. We were only slightly late leaving the hotel, and made good progress as we headed east along a busy road that took us past the Gifu Air Self Defence Base. We heard the occasional jet fighter flying overhead and also saw some helicopters. At around 9.30am we had our first break of the day in a leafy suburban park.

By lunchtime we'd reached Unuma. We caught a glimpse of Inuyama castle across the other side of the Kiso River, although we couldn't see the river itself. While checking the map, I realized I'd miscalculated the distance of the day's walk. It wasn't 32.6km, but 26.7km. As we'd already covered over 17km, we felt in excellent spirits as we sat down for lunch at a curry restaurant just off the Nakasendo. We took our time eating, eventually setting off again at around 12.30pm.

It wasn't long before we started our first climb of the day through the picturesque outskirts of Unuma, which took us past a couple of large ponds with lots of ducks. On the way up we passed an older Japanese guy who, like the guy who stayed at the same ryokan as us in Sekigahara, was walking the Nakasendo on his days off work, taking the train to pick up where he left off each time. We soon overtook him, but met him again near the top of the hill after we stopped to try and work out the proper route through an off-road section of the Nakasendo. We eventually found the right track, and together the three of us traversed a forest with towering trees and lots of ferns, some of it on ishidatami (path paved with stone) .

The path took us over the top of the hill and back down to the main road. We then had to cross the road by means of a tunnel through which also flowed a stream. Once on the other side, we were rewarded with our first view of the mighty Kiso River. It was quite impressive. A lot wilder than I imagined, with huge boulders on either side and bush-clad hills stretching up from the riverbank on the far side.

We followed the Kiso River for several kilometers until we reached Ota, with a small detour along the way to visit an old temple up on the hillside. Because we arrived earlier than planned, we decided to make an unscheduled stop at a museum on the outskirts of the town, but unfortunately it was closed. We checked in to our hotel at around 3.30pm.

We soon realized that the town had a sizeable Brazilian population. A lot of the signs around the town were in Japanese and Portuguese, and there were Brazilian restaurants and shops. That evening we went to a family restaurant for dinner. We both really enjoyed the day's walk, especially our first real (albeit brief) off-road experience. The fact that it was shorter than we anticipated also helped.

Day 5: Sekigahara - Gifu

Distance covered: 31.4km
Weather: Rainy, then cloudy

Although we both heard rain on the roof during the night, it had stopped by the time we got up. My shoes had dried well. Unfortunately, however, some of the clothes I'd worn the previous day were still damp.

Breakfast came at 7am and consisted of rice, a fried egg, salad, tsukemono (pickles), miso soup, nori (dried seaweed), and green tea. I needed my coffee fix, so I got some from a vending machine along the road soon after we left. We had aimed to get away by 7.45am, but it was closer to 8am by the time we set off, the delay caused firstly by Erik mislaying his money belt (he found it, but only after emptying the entire contents of his pack on the floor of the entrance), and secondly by a heavy rain shower, which necessitated us donning our raingear.

The rain didn't prevent us enjoying the scenery, although the closer we got to our destination of Gifu (a major city) the less interesting it got. We also had to cross a couple of big rivers long the way, which entailed leaving the original Nakasendo and climbing onto busy road bridges and then climbing back down onto the original route once we'd crossed, as in the old days these rivers were crossed by ferry.

We had trouble finding a place for lunch, but ended up eating at a pleasant little restaurant called Yellow Tomato that served spaghetti and pies of various kinds. Erik opted for a pie, while I went for Atlantic Spaghetti, which consisted of a plate of spaghetti with two deep-fried salmon fillets and a couple of scallops on top! It was accompanied by a cute little potato salad.

The last few kilometers into Gifu were tough. For some reason (probably just exhaustion) my pack felt especially heavy, and my groin was starting to ache. To make matters worse, I missed a turn as we were entering the city, and we had to ask a dear old woman in a shop how to get back onto the Nakasendo. At least it had stopped raining by this time. Plus we got to see a beautiful sunset and a rainbow just before we got to the city centre.

We eventually made it to our hotel, the Comfort Inn Gifu, just after 5pm. We checked in and freshened up before meeting our good friend Hitomi, who took us out for dinner at a nearby izakaya. I had my first drink (a beer followed by some hot sake) since leaving Kyoto, and it was comparatively late (10pm) before I got to bed. My right calf had been very sore ever since our arrival in Gifu, and it was cramping up as the night wore on. Luckily the following day was a rest day, otherwise I might have been in trouble.

Day 4: Hikone - Sekigahara

Distance covered: 24.6km
Weather: Cloudy, then rainy

The first thing I thought of when I awoke was the weather. The forecast wasn't great. I'd noticed the previous evening that I had a view from my hotel room window of Hikone castle up on the hill, but when I looked out this morning it was nowhere to be seen. Everything looked grey and murky. As it got lighter, though, I noticed the people walking around outside didn't have their umbrellas up, which was definitely a good sign.

I knocked on Erik's door at 6.55am. He was sill showering, so I went down and started breakfast (toast, sliced boiled egg, salad, fruit, coffee, and orange juice) without him. By the time he joined me it had started raining outside.

We left at 7.45am and soon rejoined the Nakasendo. The walk back seemed a lot easier than the walk to the hotel the previous afternoon. Our spirits were definitely higher. It wasn't long, however, before we had to tackle our first pass of the day: Surihari Toge. Tomoyo had traveled this section in her car and her impression of it was that it was dark and depressing. The route was narrow and steep in parts, especially when we left the road to follow the original path of the Nakasendo, but before long we were at the top. It reminded me a bit of the climb up to the Sign of the Kiwi via Victoria Park back home in Christchurch.

The road was quieter than most of the ones we'd traveled on through Shiga, and the scenery over the other side of the pass was quite different too. It was more rural, with areas of forest interspersed with fields and villages. The rolling countryside was also a pleasant change from the relative flatness of the terrain alongside Lake Biwa. At one point we spotted a troop of monkeys on the road ahead, but they disappeared into the bush as we approached.

We arrived in Samegai at 10.30am and headed to the Japanese buffet restaurant alongside the station recommended to us by Tomoyo. According to Tomoyo this was the only restaurant to speak of in the area, so we waited around until 11am for it to open so we could have lunch. It was a popular place, and the food was lovely, with lots of fish and healthy vegetable dishes.

It'd been drizzling on and off throughout the morning, so we'd been wearing our raingear. When I took my (cheap, non-breathable) rainpants off before lunch I discovered my trousers were damp from perspiration, so I left my rainpants off when we set off again after lunch. Before long, however, it started to rain heavily, so I reluctantly put them on again. By the time we arrived in Sekigahara, not only were my trousers damp again, but my feet were soaked. I vowed to buy some breathable rainpants at the earliest opportunity, and to do something to make my shoes more waterproof.

We got to Sekigahara at around 3.30pm and soon found our accommodation for that night, a Japanese ryokan called Masuya. We were warmly welcomed by the innkeeper, who gave me some newspaper to stuff in my shoes to help them dry overnight. We had two large rooms to ourselves, one with a table and zabuton cushions where we ate and relaxed, and the other with futons for sleeping. There was a lovely big bath made of cypress wood.

There were only two or three others guests, one of whom was also walking the Nakasendo, although in the other direction. We also learnt that a large party of foreigners on a guided walking tour of the Nakasendo was booked in the following night. Organized by Walk Japan, this tour takes people along the more picturesque sections of the trail between Kyoto and Tokyo, covering the remainder of the distance by train.

Day 3: Omihachiman - Hikone

Distance covered: 24.9km
Weather: Cloudy, with a few spots of rain

Mornings were becoming a routine for me now. I would wake at 3.30am, doze till 5 or 5.30am, then shower, shave, dress, slowly pack, and wait around till breakfast time (in this case 7am) when I'd knock on Erik's door and we'd go down for our morning meal. Sometimes Erik would still be in the shower or dressing when I knocked (his morning routine wasn't as leisurely as mine), in which case I'd wait or go down on my own.

Although this morning's breakfast wasn't a fancy buffet like the one at Kusatsu, it was still nice. It consisted of an omelette, salad, toast, and slices of banana and melon, plus a bottomless cup of coffee.

We checked out at 8am and set off to rejoin the Nakasendo, which this time involved a walk of about 2km. Rain was forecast, and as we passed through the nearby town of Musa, we felt the first few drops. Erik stopped to put on his raingear, but I left mine off, and the rain soon stopped.

We arrived in Gokasho right on 11am, which was when we'd arranged to meet Tomoyo for lunch. We had a drink at a nearby McDonalds, then headed to a self-service Japanese restaurant for a meal. It was great value and the food was tasty.

We left Gokasho at 12.30. As we approached Toriimoto we had a pleasant encounter with a bunch of elementary school kids returning home from school. We even exchanged gifts with one at the end. However, the afternoon leg of our journey, which took us to Hikone, turned out to be a lot tougher than we expected.

We'd planned to arrive in Hikone around 3.30pm in time to look at the castle (which closed at 4.30pm), but it was already 4.45pm when we got to our hotel. The last few kilometers from where we left the Nakasendo at Toriimoto to the town of Hikone were particularly tough, involving firstly climbing uphill through a seedy area full of love hotels and then walking through a tunnel before descending into the town itself. We eventually got to the station area, but we couldn't work out how to get across the railway tracks to our hotel. We ended up asking a couple of old ladies, who led us through an underpass and right to our hotel.

Although the castle was already closed for the day, we went to have a look at it anyway, which wasn't a complete waste of time as it's lit up at night and you can still walk through the castle grounds. We then had dinner, checked our email, and did some washing at the coin laundry inside the hotel.

We both felt tired after the day's walk, which with the extra distance at the beginning and the end was probably closer to 30km than 25km. We knew that the next day was going to be shorter, but we also knew that we'd have to negotiate our first real pass as we left the shores of Lake Biwa and headed east into Gifu prefecture. We resolved to try to leave earlier and take less time for lunch. Three days in, and we were already looking forward to our first rest day on Sunday.

Day 2: Kusatsu - Omihachiman

Distance covered: 23.6km
Weather: Fine

I woke early once again - this time at 3.30am - but was able to doze off again and snooze through to just after 5am. I got up, showered, packed, and watched TV until the hotel restaurant Liberty opened at 7am. The breakfast buffet at the Boston Plaza Kusatsu was one of the finest we encountered throughout our trip. It featured a variety of Japanese and Western dishes. Erik, as usual, sampled the Japanese fare, while I stuck to the familiar in the form of toast, scrambled eggs, cereal, and fruit.

My foot was still a bit tender when I got up. However, once I got my shoes on I hardly noticed any discomfort at all. We checked out and were back on the Nakasendo by just after 8am. The first few kilometres went smoothly, but we made a few wrong turns later in the morning as we were using the walking map for the first time and still getting used to it. The route was pretty flat all day, much of it alongside a busy highway. We stopped for lunch at a newish-looking service area known as a michi no eki (literally a "road station"), where I had ten-soba, or noodles topped with tempura.


We were back on the road 45 minutes later and pressed on to Omihachiman, arriving at 2pm on what turned out to be our shortest day's walk. After checking in at our hotel, we went out to find Modern Jazz Quarter, a coffee shop recommended by my brother Mark, who used to live in Omihachiman. We asked at the tourist information centre by the station, but the woman had never heard of it. I recalled seeing a map on the MJQ website back in New Zealand showing its location, so we set off in what I thought was roughly the right direction, and sure enough we soon spotted a sign indicating it was just around the corner. It was a lovely little place. We enjoying chatting with the owner. There were all sorts of coffees to chose from (they also sold coffee beans from all around the world), and of course jazz music playing over a high-tech audio system. When we left, we took a card with a map of the coffee shop back to the woman at the tourist information center, thus fulfilling one of our tasks for the day, which was to "help someone".


From the station, we then walked to Himure Hachimangu shrine a couple of kilometers away. We wandered around the nearby canal area before heading back to our hotel. While we were out, Tomoyo, who had helped a lot with the planning of the Shiga leg of our walk, had dropped by to deliver a delicious birthday cake. I also got birthday cards from Keiko and Hitomi, and some presents from Erik. Hitomi had also sent a Lawsons card, which we used to buy water, coffee and other essentials at convenience stores along the way.

After devouring as much of the cake as we could, we went out for dinner at Capricciosa, an Italian restaurant inside a mall across the road from the hotel. We both felt good and our confidence was high. The weather was perfect, and we were surprised at how early we arrived in Omihachiman. The next day was meant to be even shorter. What's more, my feet felt fine, even though I'd hiked without blister plasters for the first time in over a week.