Along the Shimoko River

 

2nd of May, 2014, and I begin day 8 of my walk along the Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage from Arifuku, the small onsen resort in the mountains between Hamada and Gotsu.

The paddies are all flooded and will be planted with rice soon.

I stop in at a deserted, though not defunct, pottery.

Behind, some of the climbing kilns, anagama, no longer in use.

I think this may be the Yoshida Pottery, as they specialize in larger more utilitarian pieces, rather than the other potteries nearby which have modern showrooms and make more delicate pieces.

My route for a few days will be roughly SW, inland from the coast, down to where Iwami ends , then up the coast back towards my area of Gotsu.

After leaving the pottery I head over a pass and drop down into the Shimoko River valley and head upstream.

Heading upstream I start to pass numerous ruins of a "ghost railway", the Imafuku Line of a raiway that was planned to run over the mountains to Hiroshima.

It was started in 1933, then halted by the war, and never completed and opened.

Since I first moved here 20 years ago, they have started to turn it, somewhat successfully,  into a tourist attraction.

In Utsuicho I stop in at the local shrine, an Otoshi Shrine.

There are quite a lot of Otoshi shrines in Iwami. Otoshi was a son of Susanoo and is a kami of agriculture and rice.

The previous post in this series on my walk along the Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage was on Fukusenji Temple in Arifuku.

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Fukusenji Temple 13 Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage

 

Fukusenji is a small, rural temple in Arifuku, a mountain village in Shimane.

It is a Rinzai sect temple, and the honzon is a Kannon. Otheer than that I can find no information.

There is documentation on the temple dating to 1580, but it is not clear to me if that is when it was established.

This was the end of the 7th day of my walk along the pilgrimage, and from here I took a bus home and restarted from here at a later date as the next section heads down the mountains to the southwest.

The previous post in this series on my walk along the Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage was on the walk to here from down near my home.

If you would like to subscribe by email just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published and made public. I post new content almost everyday, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the last ten posts.

Along the Yato River, Up the Nagatani Valley, & Over to Arifuku

 

The next temple on the Iwami kannon Pilgrimage is in Arifuku, up in the mountains, and so for a few kilometers I follow the very windy Yato River upstream.

It's a long and fairly steep climb up the valley, passing a small local shrine without any of the external trappings of a shrine other than a very small shimenawa

Not exactly sure what this barn/storehouse is used for but I find the small windows and two little doors quite intriguing.

I think this may have been the local Japan Agriculture Offices in the settlement of Nagatani.... official buildings, like police stations, schools, post offices etc in the early Taisho and Showa periods were built in this "western style". Since I took this photo, it has been demolished.

From Nagatani I head over the mountains to the next valley. This little shrine has always intrigued me as it is far from any settlements....

Dropping into the Uyagawa River drainage, abandoned farms are in the process of being reclaimed by nature...

About twenty years ago on my first walk here I noticed an old, rusty bus stop, so I am guessing that in the 50's, 60's, and maybe even the 70's there was a bus service here, but with a population that is now just a fraction of what it was then the area still survives but is in serious decline...

I believe this is called Hebiyama Falls, "Snake Mountain Waterfall"

I stopped in at one of the many abandoned houses....

This one has now probably conpletely collapsed and returned to the earth....

It is said that once abandoned a Japanese house will completely collapse in 25 years or less.... I have seen it happen to many since I have been here.....

Last typhoon season the Uyagawa River flooded seriously.... This was a new bridge from upstream....

These are a very common kind of commercial building from the early 20th century.... in Atoichi, which, like so many villages, used to have a wide range of shops... now the nearest convenience store is 6 kilometers away.

The previous post in this series on my walk along the Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage was on the Zen temple Fukuoji.

Okameyama Fukuoji Temple 12 Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage

 

Day 7 of my walk along the old Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage, and for the first time I have crossed into Hamada Domain from the Shogunate-cotrolled Ginzan Domain. During the Edo Period the old province of Iwami was basically divided by the Gonokawa River.

I'm heading up the Yato River and after leaving Oda there is a small tunnel through to Ichiyama, the next main settlement on this side of the river.

On the opposite bank is a huge Zelkova tree overhanging the river. This is a suijin altar, and in May during the Suijin Festival the priest will visit here and the local people will leave a giant purification wand, an Onusa. In the old days they would have come here by boat but since the Yato River was dammed it is no longer navigable.

Ichiyama is named after the high point in the photo above. There are the ruins of a very small castle on the top.

The new road that bypasses the actual village is lined with azalea bushes which look great at this time of the year.

On the opposite bank this grove of riverside bamboo is a favorite gathering spot for all the local egrets in the evening as the sun sets and they settle in for the night as a flock.

And then Eno comes into view. It is not a large settlement, yet is home to two temples, one of which is the one I am to visit.

After crossing the river I look towards the mountains where I will be heading next.

For such a small hamlet, Fukuoji is quite a substantial temple, and I have been unable to find out why.

It is a Soto Zen temple, and I believe it was founded in the 14th century.

The local story is that the village headman found a statue of Kannon on a giant turtle in a pool in Senjokei, a gorge with many waterfalls a few k upstream from Eno.

He then established the temple and installed the statue as the honzon.

One day I may get around to asking a local historian about the temples history......

The previous post was on Oda Hachimangu Shrine...