Magome-Juku to Tsumago-Juku to Nagiso

This morning was a chilly -2° to start the day. We rolled out of bed, dressed in our supplied pyjamas and toddled downstairs for breakfast with the Belgium couple... dressed in pyjamas. Strange, but when in Rome and all that! Beautiful buffet prepared by Ken with his homemade yoghurt, homemade blueberry jam, granola, toast, juice and coffee.

After breakfast we did a daylight reconnaissance of the village, before saddling up the packs , which now feel like they weigh 30kg. Weird since we have used some toothpaste and hand cream so it should feel at least 30 grams lighter!

Today's mission was a 8.9km walk to Tsumago-Juku and then a 3.8km walk to Nagiso but we ended up walking 17.1km. We cannot work out why as we stayed on the trail pretty much the whole way. I think the tourist guides must be wrong.

The first hour was solidly uphill, beautiful scenery with a constant sound of a river beside you. We came across our first bear bells, and rang most of them. We were also accompanied by the constant tinkle of the bear bell on Lynette's pack. There is a famous free tea house on the route that we stopped at for a cuppa which is tended to by a friendly old Japanese man. We sat down and started to chat to two women who are also hiking who were from Brisbane (Wynnum and Kedron to be precise). The water on the ground next to the trough was frozen, and it was about here we started to notice frost on the ground.

We had an excellent recommendation from Ken for a lunch place called Otokichi for when we got to Tsumago which was located off the beaten path. Best $12 lunch ever of chicken tonkatsu (see photo). We then continued on to Nagiso with a quick stop walking up a hill to Tsumago Castle ruins, luckily for a nice view because castle ruins was poetic licence in the description.

In Nagiso, we walked across the Momosuke Bridge which is a 247m wooden suspension bridge. After a stroll around Nagiso, we went back to the railway station to await collection from our hostel. We decided we did not want to walk the very long uphill walk to the hostel in the mountains. They were running late, so we enjoyed another Japanese quirk and got a hot chocolate in a weird can/bottle from a vending machine for ¥180. The can was so hot it was almost impossible to hold when it came out. Very sweet, but we were starting to get chilly waiting outside, so it did the job to warm us up a wee bit.

The Yui-an Hostel is in a 250 year old restored farm house. We were greeted by Erika who is a delightful young lady who has a bubbly infectious personality. Lynette asked about bath etiquette so we were able to avoid all anxiety and both of us were bathed in a wooden tub and squeeky clean for dinner in the hostel. I will say dinner was a lot nicer at Ken san's, but the company was great with Erika and a young kid from Thailand who is hiking solo, so it more than made up for it. Tonight's room also has a new experience with coal filled bed warmers under our doonah. It is getting down to -3° tonight, so we hope to be nice and toasty. Another fabulous day.

Tomorrow we are being collected for a washi making workshop in an artisan village somewhere.Read more