Hiking in Nikko

As planned I got up early, fetched my Japan Rail pass from Tokyo station (actually easier than it sounds), and got on a train to Nikko. It took about 2-3 hours, gradually getting more and more rural. Lots of arrays of solar panels though! On roofs of buildings, and just in random fields.

At one transfer though, a older woman asked me in English if I was going to Nikko, handing me a map. Then all the signs and announcements were in Japanese, English, and Chinese (hadn't been hearing Chinese announcements before), and I knew that Nikko must be a bit of a tourist attraction...

I guess the "World Heritage Site!" sign was another hint. It's a pretty beautiful location though, with mountains rising sharply in the near distance.

I went to see a small temple. It was quite nice, with wish-boards hanging in the breeze. Sometimes people would come and bow their heads for a moment, then pull the cord so the gourd would rattle, I imagine to get the attention of the spirits.

I wandered a bit further and found a park etc.

I'm very casual about the little girl on her bicycle and the brother waving around a net, but in reality I waited for quite a while for them to walk somewhere good for a picture :)

Hiking

Here's the bit you've been waiting for. I went to get a bus pass to Lake Chuzenji and a local informed me that traffic was so bad, the bus was taking 2 hours instead of 40 minutes. Everyone wanted to see the autumn colours; this was the best weekend for it. He recommended I go to Kirifuri instead, 10 minutes away, where there was a nice waterfall.

My hand hovered over the two buttons for buying tickets. I couldn't decide. I eventually chose Kirifuri more or less randomly, but it made the guy quite happy :)

And I think it was a good choice! There were lines and lines of people waiting to go to Chuzenji, but Kirifuri was pretty empty by comparison.

And oh my, the colours were amazing. I'm just going to put a lot of trees pictures here now.

It's even better when you can see other hills.

It's only a very short walk to see the first two waterfalls.

OK, fine, have some selfies.

After this, I went on a longer walk (about 8km round trip). It felt a bit like an enchanted forest.
(This is the gloomy part where our hero might make a poor decision to increase tension. Onwards! Narrator's note: both sunset and the last bus were at about 5pm...)

Then an old road with some bridges... The mountains rise very quickly. I think it's because they are all volcanic in origin.
I was going to delete that last picture but it has a certain pleasing vertigo to it.

Oh dear. No phone signal, no Google translate. Wild boars live that way. The plot thickens.

Up one hill and down another, many switchbacks later, I crossed another bridge and then I found it!

Sunset pictures

On my return, the darkness approached
and the sky started to make itself known.
I dashed over to the best spot to photograph a sunset!

Over to the moon.

OK, that's way too many pictures. I made it back to all the buses and trains. Ready for another day.