Nagiso to Nojiri

Cedar forests on the walk from Nagiso to Nojiri

4:30am appears to have become my designated wake-up time. I have stopped fighting it. On the positive side, our request to have two futons stacked on top of each other had been quietly actioned overnight, and the improvement in sleep quality was meaningful. Small victories.

Fi finished our TikTok from yesterday's adventures (link here for those interested in our particular brand of shenanigans). I finished the blog. We then descended to the onsen for the now-obligatory pre-breakfast soak. The hotel alternated the men's and women's baths daily at midnight so guests could experience both — a thoughtful touch, though in practice the two were near-identical. We appreciated the gesture nonetheless.

Breakfast was unanimously declared by the group to be superior to the previous property's in both taste and quantity, which at this point in the trip is the only metric that matters.

The hotel shuttle deposited us at Nagiso Station at 9:00am, ready for the day's main event — 15 kilometres of Nakasendo trail between Nagiso and Nojiri. This is one of the wilder stretches of the route, climbing through dense cedar forest along ancient trade paths that once connected the mountain communities of the Kiso Valley. Unlike the carefully preserved charm of Magome and Tsumago, this section is quieter, rawer, and sees far fewer walkers — which, as it turned out, had some implications.

A multi-course delicious breakfast. The meats to be placed on the Hibachi include stuffed tofu, duck and horse meat. Yup you read that correctly. 

And just when you think you're done and couldn't possibly fit anymore in...the soba comes out

Our transport to Nagiso station

Our travel agent had advised us to buy lunch in Nagiso before setting off. Reasonable advice, though it slightly presupposes that Nagiso is the kind of place with lunch options. What it does have, somewhat improbably, is a 7-Eleven — a discovery Jays made with considerably more enthusiasm than the situation called for. The detour was modest. The time spent inside was less so. People were hustled out. We got back on track.

We had also been advised to carry a bear bell on this section. Yesterday, amongst the throngs of other walkers, this felt like the sort of precaution you take and never need.

Today we needed it.

Jays and Ellis caught a glimpse of an actual bear crossing the path ahead before it apparently reconsidered its life choices and disappeared into the trees, presumably driven off by the considerable volume of noise our group produces at rest, let alone in mild panic. The rest of us saw nothing. There is no photographic evidence. We are aware of how this sounds. The bear was real...at least according to Jays and Ellis.

Unbothered by any of this, the forest carried on being magnificent. A few degrees cooler than the previous day, deep cedar shade, a breeze that actually meant something — the conditions made the landscape feel like a reward. Tall trees, moss-covered stones, creeks threading through the undergrowth. It was, without question, the most enjoyable walking of the trip so far.

What the internet did neglect to mention was that a not-insignificant portion of the route follows actual roads, and that at certain points we were passing through people's front gardens, back gardens, and general domestic arrangements with a familiarity that felt faintly presumptuous. The locals took it with admirable equanimity.

We were operating under one firm constraint: the 14:52 train from Nojiri Station. Miss it, and the next service was three hours away. This was communicated to the group at regular intervals and proved, on this occasion, to be a surprisingly effective motivational tool. We made it.

Walking through a sleepy rural village looking for takeaway lunch options

Finally on the trail, leaving Nagiso behind and beginning to incline to the peak that we had to cross

There was a fair bit of the trail on "road"

But yes...we were on the Nakasendo

The forested sections were beautiful to walk through

Random things we walked through...like a camp site!

It was a mostly a comfortable walk. We only encountered a handful of other walkers

Heed this caution!

Many water crossings along the way

The path narrowed at times but was never overgrown or challenging

One of 2 rest stops that we saw, we used this one to have our lunch which we worked hard to buy

Egg with soy rice

The forest sections were pretty

Too many moss photos

Thank you cedar forest

The final stretch down into Nojiri. We saw many local farmers working on their rice fields

Nojiri itself made Nagiso look metropolitan. The station was a single small building. The town around it was approximately as busy as the station suggested. What it lacked in amenity it compensated for with a dependable cluster of vending machines, cold drinks, and a patch of shade — which after 15 kilometres is genuinely enough. The train, when it arrived, was a charming two-carriage affair with unusually specific instructions on ticket purchase and payment, followed carefully by people with absolutely no interest in being left behind.

We pulled into Kiso Fukushima at 15:30. Our hotel, Urara Tsutaya, was directly across the road from the station — a piece of logistical good planning we were in no mood to take for granted. Stray members of the group were collected from what appeared to be an impromptu shopping stop somewhere between the platform and the front door, and we checked in.

We pulled into Kiso Fukushima at 15:30. Sitting at the heart of the Kiso Valley, Kiso Fukushima was once one of the most important checkpoint towns on the Nakasendo — a place where travellers were stopped, papers inspected, and the movement of people and goods through the mountains carefully controlled. The old checkpoint, or sekisho, still stands and is worth a visit for anyone with time and energy to spare. We had neither, but noted it approvingly from a distance. The town itself tumbles down toward the Kiso River in a pleasing jumble of old merchant streets and cedar-clad buildings, with mountains pressing in on all sides — the kind of place that rewards a slower pace than we were currently capable of.

Our hotel, Urara Tsutaya, was directly across the road from the station — a piece of logistical good fortune we were in no mood to take for granted.

Onsen before dinner. After-dinner gathering. It continues to amaze me that we never seem to run out of alcohol. I have stopped questioning it.

We think this was the information centre. There was pamphlet with instructions on how to buy and pay for train tickets which many of us had to read multiple times and still didn't know if we understood correctly

Nojiri Train Station

Followed the other walkers who were already on the platform

You take a ticket once on the train if boarding in the afternoon and then pay the conductor (in the morning apparently there was a ticket man at the station to purchase pre-boarding

Kiso Fukushima

Our hotel

Can't seem to shake this guy

Lovely entrance

Our room

With private bath

Handy separate toilet

Free socks!

Tea and coffee in our room. This was the only "traditional" type accommodation on our trip that had provided free in room coffee

The lounge area was open from 15:30 to 17:00 and had an array of drinks and snacks

Small seating area

Merchandise for purchase

Shushh...there was no one there so I took a quick snap. Not a kosher thing to do...

An example of the type of menu we've had over the last few days

I really love the bowls and plates

Beef and tofu on walnut miso cooked on hoba leaf

Dessert was only average sadly. I enjoyed the sake jelly but even I found the other offering a little strange

Sake party is the nightly norm

Magome to Tsumago — First Steps on the Nakasendo

Pretty hamlets along the way

Today was day 1 of our hike on the Nakasendo. 

Unfortunately, the futon and traditional pillow were not kind to Fi and I. Sleep, if any, was fitful at best. Somewhere in the wee small hours we both stirred. Fi heard the birds, I saw the sunlight. We both exchanged a silent glance of cautious optimism that it was at last time to get up, and simultaneously realised it was only 4:30 in the morning. Close, but no cigar.

So we did what any sensible person does at 4:30am in a 200-year-old ryokan — we pulled on our yukata, snuck out into the garden, and held an impromptu photo shoot in the garden. This was followed by a restorative soak in the onsen, which did an admirable job of ironing out the overnight damage and preparing our bodies for what lay ahead.

Who are these two amazing looking models?!

Breakfast at 7:30 could not have come soon enough.

Over the meal we met the owner's nephew, who was also the chef, and who upon hearing our plans for the day offered to simply drive us to Magome. Just like that. The original plan had involved a certain amount of precision timing:

10:45 — Local bus from Nakatsugawa Station to Magome-juku (Terminal 3, Yellow zone, left of the station exit). Fare: ¥800 per person, coins only, pay the driver on exit. 11:10 — Arrive Magome, begin the 8km walk to Tsumago, lunch sourced in town and consumed somewhere scenic along the way. 15:00 — Arrive Tsumago, explore. 16:10 — Arranged transfer from Tsumago Car Park 1 to the hotel.

A kind man with a car rendered all of that completely unnecessary. He also saved us a taxi fare, a bus fare, got us there earlier, and meant we'd be walking before the day hit its forecast high of 30 degrees. We were not going to argue.

Breakfast time! Get those calories in 

We may have enough photos of us in yukatas to produce our own calendar. A little late for formal introductions but from left to right - Ellis, May, Fi, moi, Serena, Jays

Baymax is ready, along with a trusty bear bell thanks to Fiona (& Amazon)

Bus...yes. The best sight ever for lazy and money-saving-loving Asian travellers

We arrived at Magome shortly at around 0920, and after unsanctioned toilet breaks and coffee hunts began our walk towards Tsumago at 0930. Magome sits at the top of a long, stone-paved slope rising through the hillside. We walked along the path lined with waterways and carefully restored Edo-period merchant houses restored with quiet care. It was like stepping back in time. It was once a prosperous checkpoint town on the Nakasendo, and the writer Shimazaki Tōson — one of Japan's most celebrated Meiji-era novelists — was born here, a fact the town notes with considerable and deserved pride.

The 8km Magome to Tsumago walk is the jewel of the Nakasendo, and it's easy to understand why. Cedar groves, moss-covered stones, old paved highway sections and rural hamlets...what more could a tourist want. We enjoyed our walk immensely. The heat, though, was no joke. My top was drenched with sweat by the time we arrived in Tsumago shortly before 1pm. 

At the start of our hike in Magome

Coffee has an uncontrollable magnetic pull on these 2...and May and Ellis

The initial uphill at Magome. We felt the shops were better at Magome

It was cool seeing these things along way

A viewpoint looking back towards Magome just on the outskirts of the town

The trail was very well marked and well maintained

Bears are known to wander these lands

If you don't have your own bear bells, they had them at regular intervals along the hike that you can toll

Waterfalls

Signposts had both distances and directions

Spring blooms were still aroud

Tea houses and rest stops were plentiful along the way as were restrooms. This one was in a traditional building 

With vintage paraphaphernalia

I'm no botanist. Someone tell me if this is cedar...

Pretty creeks

Larger ones

Our first glimpses of the very well preserved Tsumago

A masugata was a place where the road was constructed to turn at two right angles in order to obstruct movement of any potential attacking forces. The masugata at Tsumago-juku has been particularly well preserved in its original form.

Lunch was very welcomed not only to replenish our energy source but also as a respite from the sun, and as a source of ice cold water. Cold soba with mushroom tempura

Well done team!

Oh what a feeling!

Tsumago, by contrast to Magome, sits in a valley, sheltered and still. It is perhaps even better preserved than Magome — electricity cables are buried underground, modern signage is banned from the main street, and the effect is startlingly complete. In 1968 it became one of Japan's first protected historic districts, largely through the efforts of its own residents, who chose preservation over modernisation at a time when that was not the obvious choice. 

We were collected from Tsumago Car Park 1 (a shared hotel transfer for all hotel guests) as arranged and delivered to our home for the evening — Hotel Fukinomori.

The hotel lacked the intimate charm of the previous night's ryokan but it compensated with a considerably more luxurious onsen, including an outdoor bath, which goes a long way toward forgiveness. We savoured every minute of it before submitting to yet another multicourse dinner, because apparently that was expected of us.

We retired to the common lounge afterward, where the mochi-and-whisky after-party format of the previous evening was quietly retired in favour of tea and the communal sharing of the day's photos. Tomorrow we continue from Nagiso to Nojiri!

Lobby of Hotel Fukinomori

Our much less traditional room

Bathroom again was a decent size

Shower

View from our balcony

Our appetiser. Right in front is quince liqueur

Sobagaki. One of the few things I didn't like. A paste/dough? made from soba seeds

Smoked salmon and trout sashimi. Yuba down the bottom and then soy sauce foam

Sukiyaki!

Amago no Shioyaki a salt grilled river fish

Vegetable tempura with onion sauce

Strawberry bavarois. We had to edumacate ourselves on exactly what a bavarois was

Another lovely end to another great day