Yakushima - Kusugawa Course | Linger in the East

What?
Yakushima (屋久島) is a subtropical island full of cedar forests of which a big part is declared as Natural World Heritage. Numerous walking and hiking courses cover the island, including the Kusugawa walking course in the Shiratani Unsuikyo Ravine (白谷雲水峡). This spot inspired animation studio Studio Ghibli for its masterpiece Princess Mononoke.
Where?
Yakushima is an island south of Kyushu and is part of Kagoshima Prefecture (鹿児島県). Yakushima Airport is served by several airlines and can be reached from practically anywhere in the country. I took the jetfoil from Kagoshima though to Miyanoura Port. From there we took a taxi to the trailheads of Shiratani Unsuikyo as buses are quite infrequent.
URL
Japan Guide Outline Yakumonkey

In an ideal world I would spend around a week on this island and walk as many hiking courses that I can, first and foremost the way up to Mount Miyanoura. But now I had only 1 day accompanied with my parents who both have some physical difficulties. So we chose to only to hike our way from the trailhead of the Shiratani Unsuikyo, taking the Kusugawa Hiking course as far as Genseirin Primeval Forest and returning. It would take around 3 hours, but given the slow pace we eventually finished it in 4 hours, just enough to catch our jetfoil back to Kagoshima.

I got to know about Yakushima – as many people have – through the animated movie Princes Mononoke. The lush green forests in that movie are extremely appealing, especially in combination with the cutesy forest spirits. In real life these spirits are of course not there (or invisible), but the lush green forest is what it is. If you walk all the way to the Genseirin Primeval Forest it’s clear where the studio got its inspiration. The moss covers really everything and it’s a place that automatically makes you quiet. That is, if you’re alone. We were lucky both with the weather and that not a lot of tourists were around that day. Nevertheless I never really got the feeling that we were all alone, which is quite an important factor though to fully appreciate this place. Of course, the fact that we took the most accessible walking course will have played its part in that feeling.

Around the start.

Trees are generally speaking BIG.

Everything is covered in moss.

Green. Shades of green.

I could go on listing all noteworthy spots we passed, like the various huge cedars or the Shirataenotaki Waterfall, but my words fail to appropriately describe Yakushima.
It would be a continuation of words like “green”, “huge”, “impressive”, “shades of green”, “mastodont”, etc.
So just take a look at the pictures and know that this is only a very small trail of a very small spot of forest on this island. So yes, I will come back here, take my time and explore more thoroughly!