Akameguchi

Between Osaka and Nagoya, along the Kintetsu rail is a city called Nara. Nara, of course, is very famous and known for wild deer and temples, and near Nara is a small city called Nabari.This gets kind of confusing, if you transfer at Nakagawa station and take that train to the left, you can go to a more small station called Akameguchi and this is where I found myself this past Sunday with a couple of co-workers, trying to find a waterfall park. Looking at the map of the Kintetsu rail line that serves much of Japan south of Nagoya, we picked is location almost at random, over that of Nara and a beach south of Toba. Getting off the train, we really had no idea where we were or how to get to the waterfall park, which is actually called "The Akame 48 Waterfall Park," but there was this sign to help out:So, lets look at this sign. We were at Akameguchi station, up there in the upper left. The first leg of the trip was down the left edge of the sign, more or less you were suppose to pass all those land marks on the map, but it also turned out the path was well marked with wooden arrows on post. The second part of the hike was through the waterfall park, it was not completely obvious, but you needed to follow those arrows that pointed at each other on the map. And the last section of the hike was on the upper right of the map, no big deal, it just kind of looks like there was no train station over there. And we were also not quite sure what that white paper was covering. The walk from the station to the entrance of the park was about 4km, all of which one of my friends keep saying, "watch, when we get there, there will be a large parking lot full of cars, and bus'."Well, who would of thought, there was the large parking lot, bus' all over the place, even taxi's But it was okay, the walk was worth it, it was a tour of a small farming city that you would not normally walk though. Bus service to the park was provided by JR rail system, so the Kintetsu did not really advertise it.

Just beyond that building up there was the entrance of the park, it cost about 3 bucks to get in there. To borrow from the Nabari City website, this how they describe the park: The Akame 48 waterfalls is in the south of Nabari City which is located in the Muro Akame Aoyama national park. The akame 48 waterfalls are well known for picturesque scenery. They were chosen as one of the hundred most beautiful waterfalls and best for bush walking. It is an area abundant with precious wildlife. And they are right, here is the first waterfall you see when you enter the park:The park is about 90% really easy paths to walk and the remaining 10% is rock carved stairs, rooted paths and kind of slippery ground. Which is a good thing, because a bunch a people along the route were wearing poor hiking shoes and high heels. Here is a view of an easier path to walk seen from a more difficult path to get too:Here I am, about 2km into the park. I think the total length of the park was about 8km, mostly uphill (mountain). But even at this point in the hike, I was starting to feel tired, it was over 94 deg's and humid, but I'm not complaining...Here are a couple more of the waterfalls:About 5km in was this waterfall:I think to see the rest, please plan on a visit. If you notice, no one is swimming in the water, even though it's really hot. Well, it's a rule.

At the end of the hike, we popped out on a road. We were planning on taking a bus back to the train station, which was 7km away and went around the mountain, but there was no bus. Well, this is what we thought, we asked this lady who was selling tea and cola, "where is the bus?" and she said "no bus." So we started walking the road back, because there was no taxi's too. But it turns out, about 20 minutes into our walk, the bus passed us. "Crap!" we all kind of thought to ourselves. But we made it back, and when we got home, this was the view of Nagoya from the 40th floor of Nagoya station: