Trip to Kii-hanto

This series requires longer explanation. My stay in Japan is going to finish, so I decided to make a week trip to see Naruto (they say Japanese Maelstrom) and to go around Kii-hanto. I started July 1 from Kyoto and went over Akashi-ohashi (see one of the previous sections) to Awaji-shima and down to Naruto-ohashi, where I stayed nearly the whole day watching sea whirlpools from the bank, from the bridge, and even taking sightseeing boat. See pictures 1 to 15.

Next day I passsed the bridge by bus and went to Tokushima on Shikoku, staying in a Youth Hostel in a lovely bay with beautiful (but quite dirty) beach, pictures 16 and 17. Next day I took ferry back to Honshu - Wakayama, where I stayed again over 1 day on the beach getting terrible sunburn. ;-) Only picture 18 survived selection process.

Next I continued south along the cost of Kii-hanto to Shirahama, famous beach, onsen (spa) and rocky coastline, pictures 19 to 42. During my stay in Shirahama, weather became bad, some storm came, probably leftover from a typhoon, so I did not go to beach, I was just climbing the rocks, taking pictures and in the end I went to one of the oldest hot springs in Japan (picture 42) - seminatural pool in cliffs with natural hot mineral water.

Then again south to Kushimoto, Shio-no-misaki and Oshima, the most southern point of Honshu, pictures 43 to 57. Again rocky coasts, famous Hashi-kui-iwa (pics 43 to 46) was without water as I went there just during the low tide, so I could stroll between the rocks in the places usually covered by water. The next day I rented a bicycle and went to nearby Oshima, pictures 48 to 57.

Then I took train and bus to Nachi-taki, the highest waterfall in Japan, 133m, pictures 58 to 60. In the evening I hitchhiked to Kawayu-onsen (spa), where hot mineral water percolates through the gravel banks of the river creating interesting rotenburo, pictures 61 to 63, you can see hot bubbles in water.

And the last day I hiked along Kumano-kodo, UNESCO protected road but there was nothing of interest. Last 2 pictures are from Kumano-hongu-taisha shrine, then I succeeded to get a hitch to Osaka and return back to Kyoto.

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