Baien-no-Sato to Yufuin

Day 8 was a fantastically clear day. We were driven to a little village, visited an old farmhouse, and home of an old lady who helps Walk Japan, mini-bussed on to an old temple at the foot of the hill, given our own little bento for lunch and started up on the tricky walk day. First was straight up to the ridge - about 90 mins- then carefully up and down to the three high points around the ridge. One point had metal footholds bolted on to a 3m rock-face. At least it was dry!

We walked/crabbed our way around for an hour, had lunch on a pievce of the ridge with cliffs on either side, then came down through forests to another temple with a 1200 yo rock carving of Buddha… then a bus to the resort town we have been in for two nights.

In hindsight, you need to imagine a small, steep, circular volcano, say 300m above the land with a diameter of say 500m at the top. Then you empty out the core so the sides are almost vertical, and shave the outsides to be almost as steep as the insides, leaving the rim between say 0.5-2m wide. Then take away two thirds of the whole thing. We walked up to and around what was left. … a bit like walking on the edge of an eggshell. The stocks had a lot of use! There were times when I was quite sure the people who decided to set up the trail were the offspring of lunatic Japanese mountain goats. Hiking up a 1600m mountain the next day was simple after that: it was just a question of going step by step for however long we needed, rather than having to check each step and handgrip.

On the hoizon was the 1500m mountain we climb the next day. It is the double-peaked one in some photoos. We went to the RHS peak as the walk on the left has become very dangerous after a tremor.
The town is a tourist trap: endless cake and ice-cream shops to cater for day-trippers, who are mostly Korean honeymooners. Their buses leave at 445 and the shops all close at 5pm. It is suddenly a very pretty place without them, but less ice-cream for sale. 15,880/10.6km and 99 flightsRead more