Spring in the mountains of Japan is a glorious time. The flowers are out, the days are warm again and trails that might 
have been under snow only a few weeks before are once again open and ready to be explored. I lead a German couple in May along the Kumano kodo, the old pilgrimage route that once lead from Kyoto to the great shrines of Kumano. After achieving World Heritage status in 2004, the route through the mountains of the Kii Peninsula has been lifted somewhat from obscurity, but you can still walk all day and only see one or two other walkers. Over the course of 3 days, we walked eastwards, through forests of cedar, staying at small minshuku and hot spring ryokan. Our first night was spent at the small village of Chikatsuyu, in the delightful minshuku run by Mr and Mrs Kinoshita. I have to say the food there is some of the best I have had in Japan. It’s not fancy, rather the food is superbly fresh, wonderfully simple, and because the minshuku has only 4 rooms they can take so much care with each dish.
From Chikatsuyu, the trail continues east, and the first section is mostly through small villages, sometimes paths that pass by villager’s gardens and rice fields. We stopped for a break after only an hour of walking, at Nonaka, where an old lady prepares wonderfully strong cups of coffee in a small thatched house. It always amazes me that you can get coffee this good in such places even when it’s still a challenge in England. But then Japan is such a place of perfection. Did you know that a Japanese man recently won the world prize for making pizzas in Italy?
At Koguchi, another small village deep in the mountains, we were the only guests at the small minshuku, and they prepared a feast with what must have been 9 or 10 courses. Earlier in the day, on arrival, we had found a good place to swim in the shallow river. The day was warm but the mountain river was cool, and clear enough to see the tiny fish and pebbles on the bottom. OK, river swimming was not in the itinerary, but a welcome ending to hours on the trail.
Our host told us about the pressing concern for the villagers this year; monkeys. I had noticed that the vegetable and fruit fields tended by the villagers were increasingly covered with nets and even electric wires, and it now seems that if someone from the village shoots a monkey (and I don’t mean with a camera…), they can get a reward of 30,000 Yen (about £150/$300) from the local government.
The Kii Peninsula, which juts south into the Pacific Ocean south of Kyoto and Osaka, remains one of my favourite places in Japan, I think mainly because it has missed-out on so much of the development in other parts. There is one slow train line that hugs the rugged coastline and takes 3-4 hours to reach Osaka, and narrow roads through the mountains that wind between the peaks and rarely allow you to drive at more than 30 miles an hour. It has my favourite hot spring in Japan, a tiny, open-bath-beside-the-river-affair along a deep valley with no mobile phone reception. There is a tiny wooden box suspended from a rope that you can use to hoist yourself across the river should you wish – but there is nothing but forest on the other side.
