Where is Kasagi [EN][JP]? Well, it's kind of between Kyoto and Nara. They even have a website detailing the neat things you can do and see there. They forgot to mention this diorama of Samurai fighting, but they did mention the river, accommodations and canoeing lessons.
The hiking course (path) we took was called 銀の帯(Ginnoobi), Band of Silver in English. It basically ran along the length of the river. The river is basically in a gorge and at the top of the walls of the gorge was the hiking path. Along the way you could make your way down to the water, and some avid rock climbers did. In fact they were down there practising rock scaling with crash pads and ropes. We saw it as we went down there ourselves. We even hopped from rock to rock. Adelle slipped once and immersed her foot in the water. Luckily her hiking boots were waterproof. It was wild all along the path. We saw lots of spiders and some cool looking flowers. A salamander was seen at one point as well.
One of the main attractions on my list was the potholes along the river. These were formed after many years of erosion due to the flow of the river. It was a little disappointing as the website's picture was way cooler than what we found. To be honest, I think the translation (scroll down to #7) made it sound better than it was. To make the best of it we took our shoes and socks off and dipped our feet in the water. Mmmm, it was nice since the air temperature was still a little warm, especially if one was hiking around.
There weren't that many people along the way so it was good that I brought my tripod along. At a few different places along the way we set it up and took group shots. This one was taken before we dipped our feet in the water.
We had reached the end of one arm of the trail. The course would have had us go across the river and then back to the station. When we first arrived we took a wrong turn initially and walked to a small national park and we thought the trail going the other way lead to this park. What I didn't know and Naoyuki (the only one who could read the Japanese) didn't figure out was my initial guess of our position on a map along the way was incorrect. I guess he thought I knew my way around. Ha ha! A partial map had been found but it didn't show the fork on the road where we were because our spot was beyond the scope of the map.
What we should have done was consult the big map that I had photographed before we started the hike. I do weird paranoid things like that. In the upper left quadrant (Q1) you can see the fork where we had made the erroneous decision. You can see it in the lower right corner of Q1. There is a T in the path, one side continues and crosses the river in Q2 (upper right) while the other path goes towards a little mountain. It is clear in Q1 and Q4 (lower right) that the path doesn't go up the mountain at all. In fact in Q3 (lower left) you see it reach the next town.
So we continued on our merry way. The path turn this way and that way and it went on and on. Along the way there were signs teasing us with things like Ginnoobi this way 4km. We did get to see some nice scenery and a dragonfly and some cool dams. We even saw a plant that had pushed it's way through the concrete!
Since the trail seemed so long we decided to have some more tripod fun. At this point we thought we should have taken a group picture at the spot where we dipped our feet. At least there was a lot of greenery to use as a back drop for our photos.
We finally made it to civilization. This meant a road and two houses. We tried to hitchhike but I think there were too many of us and no-one had room. Naoyuki was not new to hitch-hiking as he did that to travel while in Uni. He said there were too many families and old people driving by. Our last resort was going down to the houses and asking for a taxi. It became apparent that a taxi would be coming from Nara, which was 20km away. Luckily as an alternative there was a municipal bus to Nara nearby. After a short hike to the bus stop we got on and rode to Kintetsu JR. We grabbed a snack at the Star Bucks there and headed back to Osaka. When we arrive in Nippombashi we found a porno magazine vending machine. Pictures were taken with it.
Afterwards we met with Jamie and went for all you can eat Hot pot. We filled ourselves silly with meat and veggies. On our way out we ran into Matt and Steph and their Japanese friend. As there wasn't a set plan we ended up loitering after getting some ice cream near the silver OCAT ball. That was our day of hiking through the bush and then through the underground.
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