Akame Shijuhattaki Falls

Akame Shijuhattaki [EN] [JP] is located in Mie and quite a nice hike. We took the Kintetsu train to Akameguchi, which was about an hour long ride. This place is famous for having 47 water falls along it's four kilometre trail. Adelle even convinced Scott to partake in our expedition. When we arrived at the station the sun was blazing so I pulled out my umbrella and Adelle and I enjoyed the shade while waiting for the bus. The bus soon dropped us off at the beginning of our journey. Scott's Japanese is pretty good so he told us one of the ladies at the numerous food stands was saying there was no food on the way up the mountain. This turned out to be false except for the last 300 metres of the trail.

As expected in a natural setting like this there were plenty of animals to be found. Actually they were much harder to find than one would think. Thanks to the Salamander museum and Scott "Hawkeye" Mason we were able to see some of the natural denizens of the area. As you can see in the picture there is a stone carving dedicated to the salamanders of the area. We also saw some captive salamanders as well as a big terrapin at the museum. In the wild we ran across a grasshopper hiding in the grasses, some fish swimming about their merry existence in the pools of calm between waterfalls, a salamander scaling a vertical cliff while blending in with the detritus, a beetle scurrying along on some important mission while we sat and ate our food, and finally a green spider making his way across the green moss covered rocks by the river.

The animals weren't the only one communing with nature. We saw plenty of people making their way up to the top. Outside the ice cream shops at the rest stops we saw children enjoying the sun, cool breeze and of course, the ice cream. Adelle was enjoying herself and managed to get a picture of herself in a cut out of a blue ninja. Mie is known for being the home of ninjas [EN] [JP] in medieval Japan. As you can see in the pictures we had ourselves a great time running about, eating, posing for pictures and taking pictures. We weren't the only ones in and about the water. Japanese people, young and old, made their way up and they too touched the water and enjoyed the walk.

Finally, who could forget the reason why we came: the water falls. It depends on how you define water fall because some of the water falls were mere rapids or even streams lazily trickling down a rock slope. Well, however you describe them, we saw them all and took pictures of many of them. The combination of nature, friends, and atmosphere made for a great day out.

On a closing note. The bus that goes up to the beginning of the trail finishes early, so make sure to return to the beginning of the trail before the appropriate time. The end point of the trail is located in the middle of nowhere and there is no bus stop there. We missed our bus but luckily there was a taxi. You have been warned!

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