Tojo Town, Taishaku National Park, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan
広島県東城町国定公園帝釈峡
With beautiful weather and perfect timing for viewing of the kouyou (autumn leaves) we set off for Taishakukyo a popular national park (luckily only 12km west of where I live) which attracts hundreds of people from all around Japan at this time of the year to do some medium level mountain walking and enjoy the colours of autumn!
Starting from Upper Taishaku we walked along the flowing creek to Onbashi (which I have written about in a previous post) which is an easy 25 minute walk. The sun was hidden behind the mountain so it was a little dark. From Onbashi it's a few minutes walk on before the path narrows and you begin to climb up the mountain which is pretty steep for almost a kilometre. The path eventually levels and you walk through some neighbouring homes alongside rice paddy's which gives you the feeling you took a wrong turn which Naomi and I did a couple of years ago! We managed to find out where we went wrong though this time!
Once again you go down the mountain which is just as steep. After walking almost 4km we finally arrived at Shinryuko 神龍湖 which is a spectacular sight! You can take a short boat trip on the river or stand on the bridge like we did waving at the boat from above and enjoy the scenery. It was a long walk and worth it and all we had left to do was walk 4km back to the car!! We managed to walk back in 1 hour and 15 minutes non-stop walking at a relatively fast pace.
Shinryuko from the bridge, Lower Taishaku
Naomi and Shinryuko in the background
Walking up the steep mountain through the colourful surroundings
Momiji, a particularly famous tree in Japan which the leaves turn into a beautiful deep red colour
Momiji, this time turning a vivid green and yellow colour
