"The town of Takachiho is the site of one of the most important and well known legends of Japanese mythology. In the story, Amaterasu, the Shinto Sun goddess, became so outraged by her brother's cruel pranks that she hid herself in a cave, refusing to come out and depriving the world of her life-giving light.
All of the other gods and goddesses gathered to lure her out. They tried everything they could think of to no avail until one of the goddesses performed an outrageously ribald dance that caused the other gods to roar with laughter. Amaterasu left the cave to see what all the fun was about, and in doing so she returned her light to the world."
The web page says the shrine is "nestled in amongst a grove of cedar trees". This one is 800 years old, 55 metres tall and the circumference is 705 cms.
Next on the trip was the Takachiho Gorge. From the web page I found the story of how this spectacular scenery evolved. "Takachiho Gorge is a narrow chasm cut through the rock by the Gokase River. The nearly sheer cliffs lining the gorge are made of slow forming volcanic basalt columns which resemble the scales of a dragon where the stone twisted and flowed as it formed".
You can just see the people in the little boats below. We drove over the highest and newest bridge (photo on the right) and walked over the lowest old wooden bridge.
The formation in the last photo is called the 'Pot Hole" for obvious reasons.
After this treat for our souls, we called in at the Amano Iwato Shrine, but by this stage, it was raining so we decided to go look for food and head for home.
It was just over 100 kms home, through fine mist, rain and fog, around, over and through the mountains - the longest tunnel was 2 kms.
If anybody is looking for a great place to visit, try Kyushu, the southern island of Japan. I can recommend it.
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