October 17th (Yakushima)

So, like I said, we got up at 5am to go hiking. It was about a 30 minute drive. We got lost a bit but not too much ;) Like I also said, the GPS was useful even though there weren't that many roads.

We saw a deer on our way :)

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Near where we parked the car

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The time of getting up, getting there, parking the car and all, we started our hike around 7am. I'd say the first half of the hike we followed a small railroad. Mine like small. The other half had boardwalks sometimes and others is was just rocks and roots.

Map of the hike

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

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From Trip to Japan

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We briefly saw a monkey and more deers that didn't seemed scared of humans. We hiked hard, sometime running a bit to pass groups of people who were also heading to Jomon-sugi. There were a couple of organized groups. I'd even say that 90% of people there were groups. And a lot of the people were old ! They are really in shape because the rail was a bit hard.

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From Trip to Japan

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Many trees are so big because they are from multiple generations (growing on a dead tree)

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This stump was huge and had a small shrine inside

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Monkey

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Looks like a boar's head

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Jomon-sugi!

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

The forest was amazing! There were huge trees! Moss everywhere. It was fantasy like. I could also really see the inspiration for Princess Mononoke. I felt as if I was in the movie and that I could almost see the forest spirits.

The hike finally took us 8hours because we were so hardcore :P But Nathalie's knee hurt afterward because we had been too extreme (now it's OK).

We got back to the minshuku and took a hot bath and then a nap. We had supper around 6h30 and went to bed right after. We were dead tired. But it had been worth it :D