After our stay at Kawayu Onsen (did you see Video #1?), we relocated to the slightly larger but still small town of Hongu, which we used as a base to hike two of the most popular Kumano Kodo routes — the Dainichi-goe and Akagi-goe (which essentially translate as the hikes over Mt. Dainichi and Mt. Akagi).
The small and ridiculously photogenic village of Yunomine sits almost dead center on the two trails (which extend out from Yunomine in opposite directions) and makes for a perfectly placed resting spot. Highlights of a stay in Yunomine are the 1,800-year-old Tsubo-yu, a tiny public bath built on the Kumano River (really no more than a creek that cuts through town), as well as the cooking basin on the water’s edge where locals and tourists hard-boil and eat “onsen tamago” or onsen eggs.
Check out our video of hikes in and around Yunomine.
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