Day 2: Kobe – Mt. Maya and Nunobiki Falls

Our second day in Japan, and still in the city of Kobe! Kobe as a city sits at the foot of a hilly and mountains region, and Ling’s itinerary for the day involved us going up two of those mountains: Mt. Maya – which had four cascading waterfalls – and the more well-known Mt. Rokko which offered stunning views of the city from up top.

The central city of Kobe itself is a pretty compact, so getting to the foots of the mountains only involved us taking a train back to Sannomiya Station then switching platforms to get to Shinkobe station, with the pair of mountains right behind the latter station. It was a cool morning of about 10°C by the time we got there at 0815 hrs where we started our trek up the first mountain – Mt. Maya.

Late autumn bloomers to the party. It was nevertheless still wonderful to see a welcomed change of red and orange colors in a sea of mostly green.

By the time we began our ascent there weren’t many people about, but as the morning gradually started, more persons also started on the trip up. Lots of elderly people too all armed with walking aids, several of whom greeted us with Gohaiyo mornings, and several other groups of younger persons carrying full backpacks practically speed walking up the mountain.

The walk up was fairly well-paved and marked out, so it’s a safe trip – if tiring – walk up the mountain paths. The pay off was a series of four waterfalls, called the Nunobiki Falls. The first two are pretty modest, but the last two pictured below are pretty impressive:

All the waterfall pictures here were taken on slow exposures of about 1.5 to 3 seconds using not the D300 but the E-PL1 mounted on the GorillaPod Focus.:)

Continuing up the track up, Ling spotted a small side trail that eventually led us to a secluded spot where we got a pretty good view of the city:

The next milestone is the reservoir that sits about a third-way up. Took us about 2 hours to finally get to the pretty scenic spot.

By this time we were getting pretty beat. Then it occurred to Ling why we didn’t just take the cable car from the mountain base to the top, then walk down and enjoy the sights without having our feet complain too much LOL. That’s about when Ling suggested we go back to her original plan to make for the cable car station to either ride the car to the summit, or down Mt. Maya to try the next mountain.

So, we continued along the path that ran around the side of the reservoir (with more backpackers passing us), before we realized that we weren’t quite on the right route to the cable car station. We got help from a pair of old aunties who could only manage a few words of English (‘left’ and ‘temple’), but enough for us to understand how to go from here.

We backtracked a little – feet already killing us – then climbed/crawled/walked this spectacularly steeped series of winding stairs.

And guess what; after another 30 minutes of climbing, we got up to the cable car station, only to find it looked liked this. Do you know what’s missing from this picture….?

YEAH that’s right… the !@#!@#! cable car station is still in construction!! No cable cars!! Heck; the fellows below are still building the car towers even:

I could have just about strangled the wife, who was looking real sheepish at this point. I glared half-jokingly at Ling and said “dear, how come your itinerary involves us climbing up a mountain for 1 hour to visit a construction site?!” She wailed that ‘but the map said that the cable car is working!! Not my fault!!!”

Oh well. What to do. We made our trek down on foot but on a small mostly deserted service road for vehicles. Somewhat easier walk down, and romantic even. By the time we got back to Shinkobe Station, it was about noon, and we gave up trying to go up Mt. Rokko. One mountain on this trip is enough for us!

Our afternoon segment involved us visiting the port area of Kobe. More in the next post.:)