Hiking Yakushima, Japan: Forests, Monkeys, And Mountains on the Island That Formed The Shooting Location For A Hayao Miyazaki Animated Movie.

A marked trail through mountainous Yakushima which is a Unesco site provides for said sights: ancient cedar trees and wildlife.

Within the first dozen steps or so we pause to stare while twisting our necks to look up at the enormous, overhead trees for the first time.

We are in the woods and I hear the sound of the trees whispering to me through the wind blowing there and thousands of beautiful green colors in the morning.

This is why we have come to Yakushima, an island situated about 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of Kagoshima, a city in the southern part of Japan. We long to pigment our cheeks with chlorophyll and, a three-day trek amidst the peaks of an island that is home to wildlife and ancient cedars will feed it all.

The vast majority of Yakushima was logged at some time or another with this beginning right from the Edo period in Japan which spans between 1603 and 1867 Only logging on the island stopped in the late sixties of the 1900s and the forest was conscientiously replanted.

The author goes on a trail up in Yakushima with his camera. Photo: Fiona Ching

It is no more a mere tourist spot but a national park, dotted with natural hot spring baths; a venue crisscrossed by trails for hiking that earned Japan’s first Unesco World Natural Heritage site status in 1993.

After reaching the shores of the fishing port of Anbo one of the two towns in which 13,486 inhabitants are actually concentrated, having tied our boat at the tie-up point we enter the forest at the entrance of Yodagawa Mountain Trail after obtaining some maps and guide from the tourist information centre

The Yodagawa Hut is one of the shoddy huts toured in Yakushima for being free for use during mountain climbing. Photo: Fiona Ching

The personnel guaranteed that if we strolled clockwise for three days at a steady speed, we would reach several mountain cabins for free stays. We would scale the tallest peak of the island and finally reach a bus stop. From there, we could travel back to Anbo for hot showers and cold beers. We spent our first day hiking towards Yodagawa Hut, just an hour's walk away, spreading out our mats and sleeping bags once there.

Mountain huts in Yakushima can up to 40 hikers but offer very basic accommodations. They come with defined sleeping areas on wooden floors and a few dirty windows providing dim forest light. The huts lack any electricity or cooking facilities and only have one unpleasant pit toilet per hut.