Hiking, Japan, Travel

Japan: Walking Tour Day 5: Yabuhara to Narai

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Okay, so I’m going to tell you about our last day of the walking tour. This isn’t the last day of our trip, but it IS the last day of the walking tour part. As a reminder (or if you are new, WELCOME), we did a trip to Japan in late May/early June, with part of it being a lovely 5 day walking tour on the Nakasendo Trail supported by and booked through Really Rural Japan.

Day 5: Yabuhara to Narai

  • Distance: 4 miles to 7 km
  • Elevation Gain: 320 m
  • Elevation Loss: 305 m

Okay, so this was it, the last day! I was all in on the hiking, and hopeful that my feet would survive one more day.

Breakfast was a spectacle as we thought it might be, though not as much as the “Shogun Dinner” the night before. It was tasty though, and filling. There was a western breakfast option, but we didn’t take it.

We had to catch an 8:55 train from Kiso Fukushima Station to Yabuhara Station. Though the walk wasn’t super long, it was probably about 15 minutes, and the hotel had offered to shuttle us, so we took that offer. A bunch of us loaded into a van and got dropped off at the station with plenty of time to get tickets. It was a short train ride and then it was time to walk!

We were a little slow getting out of the train station and pretty much people left us behind, no problem there. We prefer an empty hike anyway! Except for bears, maybe there’s safety in numbers?

We walked through Yabuhara Juku, under some railway tracks, and then past a nice fountain. The guidebook suggested we empty our water bottles and fill them with “the good stuff” but we just topped off.

The water tasted good, and we didn’t get sick, so yay!

And then we got to the footpath, the woods, the fun parts! I enjoyed walking through towns to see them, but the woods were always so nice.

A nice cobblestone path through the woods, isn’t it lovely? And green?

Big different between very often and not very often, glad they cleared that up. We kept ringing the bells and had little bear bells attached to our bags. After so many days, we hardly noticed them any more. Perhaps the bears didn’t either.

We did run back into some people, and actually passed a few going uphill, I couldn’t believe it! The hike wasn’t bad today, just up for a bit, and then, down. You know, normal. We had one place where we had a little navigation confusion but it worked out, and another place where there were bathrooms…but they were super gross so I didn’t use them. Very usual for a hike, very UNusual for Japan.

We kept crossing paths with various members of a multi-generational family group that we had seen on previous days. It turned out they had booked with Oku Japan, another company I had looked at. They were happy with their hike and the details as well.

Misty mountains.

There was a shrine at the top of the pass, which is named Torii Pass. That meant to me that it was the high point, and that meant it was downhill from here!

This is the torii gate that the pass is named for.

How people looked back in the day. Lots of pipe smoking and glaring, and way more snow on the mountains. Less trees though.

Showing us how bears look from the side.

And from the front.

This was the last bear bell on our journey! We knew because it was labeled as the first bear bell coming the other way and all kinds of instructions. I rang it loud and clear and all the bears scrambled away from us.

Our first view of Narai from the path.

So, we made it to Narai, the final destination on our walking journey. Our day wasn’t over yet however. We had to take a train to Matsumoto later in the day, and we had to wait until after 3:30 for our luggage to be delivered to the train station, so that meant we were planning on the 3:52 train.

So, it was time to eat lunch and wander around Narai. It was a lovely old town.

Don’t get your semi truck stuck on the tracks!

We found a highly rated soba noodle restaurant, Kokoro-ne.

The table next to ours: we were sitting on the floor on those cushions, very traditional.

Soba noodles with tempura vegetables. It was so tasty! You dip the noodles in the sauce.

After lunch we wandered the town for a bit–it’s a beautiful street, though it IS open to delivery trucks. There are some museums but the weather was so lovely we didn’t want to be inside.

This little guy was all over. It is a Tanuki statue and is mostly a symbol of good luck and prosperity.

We wandered over to the river and there was a lovely bridge to walk across. We took lots of pictures and wandered around.

We got coffee at Matsuya Sabo, which made siphon coffee–sort of like a chemistry experiment where the coffee is made in a glass goblet. Why didn’t I take pictures, I don’t know. But here’s the coffee.

And finally our luggage was at the station so we went to check things out. We decided we needed a break, so we bought our tickets and sat with our luggage, waiting on the train for a little while. We chatted with other people near us: mostly from the aforementioned family group. And then the train arrived and we were off to Matsumoto!

I’m going to stop there for today, as it’s the end of the walking tour. Next I’ll tell you about Matsumoto, and then I’ll try to get the remaining days in Tokyo as compact as possible, hahahaha! How do people do this? I guess if I didn’t have a job or other hobbies recapping my trips would be so much faster (in weeks, not the actual amount of time spent typing and looking at pictures/links/notes/etc.) But alas there are other parts of life (sadly, because traveling is so much fun!).

I gave Really Rural Japan excellent reviews online. We had never done this sort of tour before, but we felt supported and everything worked smoothly. When we had questions we could send messages via Whatsap and they responded quickly. We also had great GPS files to use via the Gaia app as well as a guidebook and other printed materials (and pdfs of everything). The hotels were great, the included meals were terrific, and the suggestions for things to do along the way were also really good–everything that we tried that was recommended was tasty and unique. So if you want to copy my trip, I highly recommend it, or to use them for another trip.

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