Yakushima
This is the first of several posts profiling the places we visited during Golden Week in Japan.
Dead coral reef at Haruta-hama, Yakushima
 The forested hills of Yakushima |
 More of Haruta-hama |
 A small stream in Yakusugi land, Yakushima |
 The Arakawa river, flowing through Yakusugi land |
 An example of secondary growth - a giant sugi tree was cut down, and then new growth began on the stump |
 These trees made a strange choice to grow on the surface of this boulder |
 Another shot of the Arakawa river |
 Yakuzaru (Yakushima monkeys) on the road to Yakusugi Land |
 Toroki Falls. This is a rare type of waterfall, as it falls directly into the ocean. |
 Kai and Maria in a hot spring pool at Hirauchi Kaichu onsen, in Yakushima |
 Eidan on the rocky beach at Yudomari onsen, Yakushima |
 Kai at Yudomari onsen, Yakushima |
Yakushima is a place of stunning natural beauty. I’ve never been anywhere else like it. It’s a small, mountainous, roughly circular island. You can drive all the way around it on the island’s only major road, at low speed, in less than 3 hours. What’s so remarkable is the variety of natural wonders contained in such a small space. It’s home to the highest peaks in southern Japan. It’s inland area is covered by a dense forest of giant, old-growth sugi trees (including the oldest known living specimen, estimated at around 7,000 years old), as well as some 1900 other species of flora. It has an unusual ecosystem that is both sub-tropical and sub-arctic. The forests are home to monkeys and deer that you will definitely encounter if you spend even just a few hours in the woods. Numerous waterfalls are scattered across the island. It has several coral reefs and beautiful beaches to explore, including a weathered granite beach that is one of the world’s primary spawning grounds for loggerhead turtles (unfortunately we were a few weeks too early for the turtles). And it has several onsen, including one that has natural hot spring pools right on the shore, so you can take a nice hot dip during low tide, with the surf crashing around you.
The main attraction for me was the opportunity to do some hiking, as Maria had graciously offered to tend to the boys so I could do a full day hike. But as I mentioned before, I hurt my back the night before we arrived at Yakushima, and I could only walk short distances without considerable pain, so hiking wasn’t in the cards. And did I mention I had spent a whole day in Tokyo hunting down hiking shoes for this trip? My feet are bigger than typical Japanese feet, so shoe stores here don’t stock my size (I finally met success when one seasoned clerk steered me towards a brand whose sizes ran big, and my feet just fit in their largest size). I now have excellent Japanese language skills when it comes to discussing shoe size ;-).
Anyway, from what I was able to see, I’d have to agree with this eloquent description of Yakushima’s forests by one hiker:
The trail through the forest this day is truly spectacular, awe-inspiring, over-coming, astonishing… I do not think English has sufficient means to describe it. Even if I’m mistaken in this regard, I know I don’t have the ability to do the island justice. Every turn reveals trees twisted and wise, old and powerful. Maybe magical might be defined by reference to these woods. Yes, that must be as near an adjective as I will find. If ever a place was magical, Yakushima must be it.
Magic is not something you laugh at for a fleeting moment of amusement. It is not a passing sensation. Magic is not something seen from a particular vantage point or in a stunning vista. It is not something you breathe on the light air. Magic is the wonder a child experiences when his father pulls twenty cents out of his ear. It is inside. On Yakushima, every pebble and every boulder, every twig and every trunk, every frond of moss or tropical leaf, every muddy clod, patch of snow, whiff of damp air, everything, is just so…. ALIVE… That is magic. To be raised here is to take animism for granted. To visit is to discard or discount any religion which does not grant the trees and rocks a soul.
Our encounter with the forests was limited to a visit to Yakusugi Land, where you pay a small admission fee in exchange for a map that guides you along several short walks through the woods on well marked paths, with benches and suspension bridges to make things easy. But even just that brief encounter was enough to make me understand why the Yakushima forests were the inspiration for the anime film Princess Mononoke. The forests drawn in that movie seemed too beautiful to be real, but after seeing Yakushima, I now know that they are real.
We spent most of our time visiting hot springs around the island, as Maria and Kai love them, and it was therapeutic for my back. My favorite was Hirauchi Kaichu onsen, where you climb down the rocky shore to get in the hot spring pools that appear only during low tide. The experience was marred only by a grumpy old man who was there, complaining vocally to his friend about us. I didn’t need to understand a whole lot of Japanese to know that his repeated references to kodomo (children) and gaijin (foreigners) weren’t intended as friendly. Maria’s favorite onsen was another one just down the road - Yudomari onsen - where you’re still on the beach, but the pools are manmade and set back from the shore a bit, so you don’t have spray from the crashing waves splashing on you.
We also spent some time at Haruta-hama. “Hama” means beach, but it was actually a dead coral reef (there’s living coral further out, which you can see if you go diving). It was low tide, so there were many pools on the reef filled with crabs, tropical fish, and a few small colonies of living coral. Kai enjoyed looking at them all, while Eidan enjoyed simply sitting among the infinite rocks near the reef, diligently trying to throw every single one of them into the water.
The one thing we struggled with on Yakushima was how to get around. We started with buses, but they were slow and didn’t come around very often. We rented biycles for one afternoon, which was a lot of fun, be Maria and I weren’t in good enough shape to handle Yakushima’s many hills, especially on rusty old bikes and carrying the boys. We finally rented a car, which was definitely the best way to get around. In a place this far from civilization, no paperwork was involved. An exchange of cash for keys, and a handshake followed by “if you damage it, you pay for it, ok?” and we were off. The only catch was that I had to quickly learn how to drive on the “other” side of the road (we got international drivers’ licenses before we left the US, and you don’t need to take any kind of test to get one). It was particularly challenging having my first experience be driving up the winding mountain road to Yakusugi land. It was a 16km, 40 minute drive on a mostly one lane road, with mirrors mounted on the numerous blind corners so you could see if anyone was coming. I nearly killed us only once, which I think was actually pretty good, given the situation 
Lastly, I can’t speak highly enough of the two youth hostels we stayed at, which were cleaner and better run than most hotels. But that will be a topic of an upcoming post…
Good resources on Yakushima:
- The Japan National Tourist Organization’s PDF on Yakushima - this is very well done
- Japan Times - Navigating through a lost world
- Canada.com - Hiking Japan’s ancient forests
- A hiker’s dazzling photographs of Yakushima’s forests - much better than mine
- A Japanese hiker’s many pictures and good overview of Yakushima’s attractions - available in English and Japanese
