Okidomari Port & the Ginzan Highway

 

I started day 38 of my walk alog the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage at Okidomari, the small port that serviced the Iwami Ginzan silver mines. The port and the mines as well as the road I am taking, the Ginzan Kaido, are all part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

For more info on the port and Ginzan Kaido, please see this earlier post.

The next temples on the pilgrimage are a cluster around Izumo. The fastes way would be togo straight up the national highway, route 9, but it would also be the most boring. One of the temples is in the foothills of the Chugoku Mountains, so I have decided to cut inland and head along a mountainous route.

There are still a few houses inhabited in the old harbour village, but less each time I visit.

The Ginzan Kaido heads up through the settlement and then into a  bamboo grove before climbing out.

Not as manicured as the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest, but 10,000 percent fewer people....

The previous post was on the last stop of the day before, Kannonji Temple in Gotsu Honmachi

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Fujishiro Toge... the Final Pass

 

The final leg of the day's walk along the Kiiji route of the Kumano Kodo from Yuasa to Kainan was over the Fujishirotoge Pass.

It had been a thoroughly enjoyable day, and one of my favorite sections of the numerous Kumano Kodo trails I had walked in the previous week or so....

After leaving Fukusho-ji temple and its glorious display of cherry blossoms, the route heads uphill and offers a view back down on Shimotsu.

Jizobu-ji temple is located at the foot of the steepest part of the trail over the pass. The current building dates to the early 16th century.

The trail now enters a bamboo forest.....

Not exactly sure what this is.... I think it is a rock that the local daimyo thought looked like a giant inkstone and so had a stonecarver "enhance" it....

The bamboo forest was delightful....

Not manicured like the famous bamboo forest in Arashiyama, but better for not being so....

After the pass Kainan comes into view.....

Quite an industrial port, ENEOS has an oil terminal here...

Kainan is the start of the large urban area that spreads out from Wakayama City...

The previous post was on Fukushoji Temple.....

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Magical Giant Bamboo Forests of Sasaguri

 

One of the great bonuses found on the Sasaguri Pilgrimage is that numerous times the walking trail passes through pristine forests of Giant Bamboo.

With only the merest whisper of a breeze, the bamboos clack against each other like wind chimes....

I know that the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest is one of the most popular tourist sites in all of Japan, but who prefers shuffling shoulder to shoulder through a manicured park with literally thousands of people, when you could be alone deep inside a magical space...?

That was a rhetorical question. The value of Arashiyama is you can take the same photos as millions and millions of other people and then post them on the same social media sites....

But, for the rest of us, I highly recommend the Sasaguri Pilgrimage.... very close to Hakata and you don't have to do the whole 4 days.....

These pics were taken after leaving a couple of temples in the Nakanokawachi area....

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Kitasando The Road to Yuga Daigongen

 

The Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage is modelled on one of the oldest pilgrimage routes in Japan, the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage, however the Chugoku Pilgrimage is a fairly modern creation, dating back to the 1980's, and therefore its route is based on the modern transportation system and is basically geared towards driving.

However, a few parts of it do coincide with older pilgrimages, and some of these still have sections of footpath, a case in point being this section I am walking on day 8 of my walk along the Chugoku Pilgrimage. South of Kurashiki is Rendaiji, temple number 6 of the pilgrimage, and it has been a site of pilgrimage in its own right for centuries.

Known as Yuga Daigongen, it was a syncretic site now split into a temple and a shrine, but it was a fairly major pilgrimage destination, and connected to Konpirasan on Shikoku, with both sites often being visited on the same journey.

There were 4 routes to reach Yuga Daigongen, depending on which direction you were coming from, but the most travelled route was known as Kitasando and approached from the north.

After visiting the Kumano Shrine and its associated temples in Hayashi, a few kilometers further south a large torii across a minor road show the way to Yuga Daigongen.

Soon a path leads off the road and heads through a huge grove of bamboo. Whenever I am fortunate enough to pass through a bamboo forest I think of all those poor tourists in Arashiyama, crowded shouder to shoulder, viewing a manicured bamboo forest behind a fence while I have a huge, silent one all to myself.

Along the trail are several small wayside shrines, none visited often and with almost no upkeep.

The trail leads to a narrow mountain road and passes a village shrine, photo 11

The torii says its name is Eki Shrine, but it was renamed Susanoo Shrine in 1943.

Earlier that morning I had stopped in at another Susanoo Shrine that had also previously been called Eki Shrine.

The road then passes a series of vegetable gardens... well protected against wild boar, monkeys, and deer.

and then skirts a village...

before once again becoming a trail....

As we get closer to the shrine-temple complex, more indications of the destination appear...

It was an absolute delight to spend an hour off of asphalt and traffic....

The previous post was on the Kumano Shrine at the base of the mountain to the north.