There are so many interesting places to hike in Japan, so we want to hike a lot of them.
Well....
I want to hike a lot of them. Jason will join me, begrudgingly.
He reserves the right to complain the whole hike though, and I'm pretty sure he did just that this time.
The hike started before we got to Nunobiki Falls actually, as we took a train to Motomachi (included on the hanshin all day ticket) and then walked for half an hour before getting to Shin-Kobe station, where Nunobiki is located.
Shin-Kobe station is so lovely because on one side of the train station is Kobe city, right smack bang near busy Sannomiya. On the other side, however, is pure, unadulterated wilderness. Well, that's an exaggeration. It is adulterated. There are paths and stairs. But it's lush, okay?
After we arrived at Shin-Kobe station, we found some signs saying "Nunobiki Taki", which we assumed meant "Nunobiki waterfall". In the beginning we went up a huge, seemingly never-ending staircase in the side of a mountain, but this was the most difficult part of the journey. The rest of the hike was largely gentle inclines. The path was sometimes a bit confusing, with some forks where we couldn't see signs, but there were always people about, so we made sure to ask people when we came to these if this direrction would take us to "Nunobiki Taki".
The walk to the waterfalls was only about 20 minutes and with the exception of that damned staircase, it was pretty easy. The waterfall itself was lovely, and there were bunches of smaller waterfalls on the way (we may have even had to ask a stranger "Is this Nunobiki Falls?" in regards to a small, run-off waterfall).
The waterfall ran into a luxurious looking, clear blue pool. It looked like just a perfect swimming hole, although signs told us that you're not allowed to swim there. Such a shame! So many of the pools along the river leading up to Nunobiki looked like glorious swimming holes. I'll have to find out if any of them are swimmable before Summer.
After reaching the waterfall, we decided to continue on to Nunobiki Herb Garden. We walked for a while, then a bit more. Got lost quite a few times, and had to ask passersby which direction the garden was in. After walking for perhaps an hour, we ask a final passerby "Is it this way?" and we were told "yes! It's this way! But you know it's not open, right? It's not open in Winter!"
Aw hell no!
Not sure why none of the other six million people we had asked for directions had not mentioned this.... It would have been great to know about an hour ago... But, I guess we got what we had come for... A nice long hike! An we did make it to the observation deck to view the Kobe skyline.
After this, the man and I were ravenous so we quickly hiked back down (much quicker than the hike up) and stopped at the nearest Family Mart for some fuel.
If you do go to Nunobiki, there's also a ropeway that goes straight to the herb garden, although be sure not to go in Winter!
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