28th of September to 2th of October 2024.
Distance: 195.1km. 5 days.
Kyoto and Osaka where the two most common places to start from when pilgrims in the old times embarked on the journey to one of the shrines of the Kumano Sanzan. Osaka was also from where I started my hike on the Kumano Kodo. I stood at the Kumano Kodo monument next to the Okawa river that runs through Osaka, and with no waymarks there were no way for me to know where I should go.
Map of the Kumano Kodo routes with Kiiji outlined.
The route that went from Osaka and led the pilgrims southwards to Tanabe, went by the name of Kiiji. This was the access route to the Kumano Kodo. Today, this is a route that barely exists. If you look at the map, it is as if a continuous line of cities from Osaka and south of it have merged into a huge one. Where the route once went, modern civilization with its roads, railways and not at least high densities of buildings has taken over.
At the start of the Kumano Kodo Kiiji in Osaka, the Kumano Kodo monument next to the Okawa river.
Enoki-Daimyojin shrine in the streets of Osaka.
In order to find where the Kiiji is going, or rather where it once went, it is necessary to download the route on your phone or a GPS decive as only fragments of the original route remains. These remaining sections are partly waymarked and described in the officially published guides, but the waymarks are not consistent or coherent.
The Kiyomizu-dera temple in Osaka, a friendly Japanese man insisted on showing me this nice and tranquil temple bringing back memories from my Shikoku 88 Temples Pilgrimage.
Walking past the Bandai pond, the route does not go through the island, but I had to do it.
Before I traveled to Japan, I had come into contact with Masako Iwamoto Vierstraete, a Japanese woman who has hiked and tracked all the Kumano Kodo routes over several years together with her husband, Erik, which she has shared on her Wikiloc profile: https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/kumano-kodo-and-koyasan-routes-xiong-ye-gu-dao-togao-ye-shan-can-yi-dao-192526587. This was an invaluable resource for me in terms of finding the way, both on this route and some of the others.
A short detour to the Sumiyoshi Taisha shrine is worth the visit.
This is what the Kumano Kodo Kiiji is all about on the first days of the walk, walking on streets through Osaka and out of it.
If you want to try to follow the Kiiji route from Osaka to Tanabe as it exists today, the distance is about 185 kilometres. This is one of the distances that I had got down wrong when I did my estimations, planning for about 120 kilometres and four days of walking. The result was that I had to start walking straight away the day after I had arrived in Osaka, losing the day I had wanted to explore the city and adjusting to the different time zone from home.
Yamanakadani, a pleasant village walkers on the Kiiji arrives at once having left most of the city behind.
Walking through fields after the remains of the Kawanabe-oji shrine.
When I started walking, there was city as far as the eye could see, although I obviously could not see very far. With a few exceptions, most of the Kiiji goes on a hard surface. Navigating through the cities also meant that I had to continuously check that I was still on the route as I had no waymarks to guide me, sometimes finding out that I had passed by where I should have left the current street that I was walking on. Despite that, walking the Kiiji still felt like an adventure in itself. I had no idea where the route would bring me, did not know what I would see and where I would end up each day.
At the beautiful Itakiso Jinja shrine.
On the first days, it was the shrines and temples that provided me with the change of scenery. I met a Japanese man who wanted to show me the Kiyomizu-dera temple with its small waterfall in the midst of a big city, a visit that brought back memories of the Shikoku 88 Temples Pilgrimage. Enoki-Daimyōjin, a shrine built around a tree in one of the streets. And of tourist attractions like the Tennoji temple and Sumiyoshi Taisha shrine. The favourite of all of those that I passed by was the Itakiso jinja shrine dedicated to the god of wood, with its wooden idols, pond and several subsidiary shrines. I was also fascinated by the decaying state of the Susa jinja, where I was lured up its broken stairs by its whispers of a forgotten past.
Jizo statues lining up next to the path leading up to where the Haraedo-oji shrine once stood.
On the third day, the path had changed to include more natural paths, although still with the majority going on paved roads. This from a section through bamboo woods up towards Fujishiro-toge.
Gradually the city slipped into more rural surroundings and the route surprised me by offering some short but steep climbs. There were bamboo forests and views, but at the same time descents on overgrown and cumbersome paths. Crossing over one of the passes on the way, I spotted a tiger keelback slithering away from underneath the leaves on the ground.
View from above the Fujishiro-toge pass.
And then the plot thickened, the descent from Fujishiro-toge became rather overgrown.
Here and there I passed by signposts and small information boards indicating that this was where the old route once had run. Here and there I passed by the remains of the old oji shrines, which are subsidiary shrines of the Kuman Sanzan and houses the child deities of Kumano Gongen, protecting and guiding the pilgrims.
View from the walk over Itoga-toge pass on the fourth day.
An old street in Yuasa.
With the exception of the last night before Tanabe, I ended up adopting a routine of walking as far as I could before it got dark, and then taking a train to a city where I could find a place to stay for the night. When it comes to Tanabe, I had booked a hotel in advance when I planned for the Nakahechi and Kohechi routes.
The Kiiji crossing over the Shikagase-toge pass.
Not directly on the route, but near Gobo, I took the time to make a detour to the Dōjō-ji temple, with memories from Shikoku flashing by again. This temple has famous legend attached to it, conserning a very cute monk from the north of Japan and the daughter of a family who let him stay while he was walking the Nakahechi. She fell in love with him and he gave her false promises, but in the end he left to return to his monk aspirations. In her anger she followed him to the Dōjō-ji temple, turning into a snake on the way. The monk hid inside the big temple bell, but the snake woman became furious and like a dragon melted the bell with fire coming from her mouth. When she afterwards saw the dead monk, she regretted her actions and threw herself into a nearby bay to kill herself.
Back to memories from Shikoku. A short detour off the route took me to the Dōjō-ji temple.
Whereas finding the route can be an issue on the Kiiji, finding necessary amenities like food and drinks are not. There are some sections of the route where there are longer distances between places to find it, but it should never pose a problem. The route goes through too much city for that.
The Motoshima Jinja Torii. A literal translation of torii is bird perch, which fit perfectly in this picture.
The last day of Kiiji brought me to the coast. A long day that had me walking through a variety of small towns, over tiny passes, overgrown paths and even on the sandy surface of a beach. Although still mostly going on a hard surface, it was a significant change from the first days on the trail. Monoshima jinja with its torii out in the water was a great ending of the Kiiji route, with the evening sun on its way down into the ocean.
A fisher lady on the walkway to Motoshima island.
After five relatively long days on Kiiji, I arrived in Tanabe. Here the Kumano Kodo splits into the Nakahechi and Ohechi routes, but those two routes I were to tackle later in my journey. As I was enjoying my dinner in the evening, I looked back at a walk that felt a little bit like pioneering an old and non-existing route, at the same time wondering what it must have been to walk it back in the days the route did exist.
Walking through the streets of Tanabe.
Note: To get to trailhead for the next route, Kohechi, I took a bus to Chikatsuyu from Tanabe on the first day due to miserable weather. The next day, I then took the bus to Hosshimon-oji and walked a short section of the Nakahechi in reverse to do the Akagi-goe and Dainichi-goe sections to Hongu. The original plan was to walk all the way from Tanabe, but here I had done another miscalculation that made it not possible to reach my destination without the use of public transportation, I skipped the first day entirely due to the bad weather. It did not matter as I would walk it at later time.
