Day 2 (9 April) Hosokute to Ena. Today as it was still pouring with rain, our host kindly drove us 6kms of the Nakasendo Way which was on roads and paths through villages. He dropped us off where the Nakasendo Way was starting to go through forests. This part includes a very old sector known as the 13 passes and 13 peaks. There has been no public accesss through here , which keeps the area completely undeveloped. We walked through the mountains to the well preserved post town of Okute. We then walked along the ridge tops before descending into Ena.
We covered 15kms today.
A common sight in the forests were the bear signs!! Our friend Ronnie was petrified of encountering a bear but the nearest we got to a bear was a Japanese serow on a golf course! We got used to looking for the 3 Japanese symbols on the signs which indicated we were on the Nakasendo Way. It was a great comfort when we came across these signs as we then knew we were on the path.
Our group of 4 were lucky to meet 7 others from Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra who were great fun to walk and socialise with.
