Yakushima: The Mossy Cedar Forest, Ancient Yakusugi & Island Waterfalls — 2 Days

Shiratani Unsuikyo is the most beautiful accessible forest on Yakushima, a ravine of clear streams running over rounded granite under a canopy of cedar, oak and a hundred kinds of moss that furs every rock and root a luminous green. Well-made trails of stone and boardwalk loop through it, from an easy hour by the river to a half-day climb to the Mononoke-no-Mori, the deep mossy hollow whose dripping, glowing stillness the artists of Princess Mononoke came here to study. Light falls in shafts through the wet leaves, water is everywhere, and the air is cool and full of the smell of moss and cedar — it is the essence of the island's rainforest, reachable on foot without the gruelling trek to Jomon Sugi. The natural first morning of the trip.

About ¥500 (¥200 off if you visit Yakusugi Land too); donation booth roughly 8:30-16:30. Northwest of Miyanoura up a mountain road. Allow about 180 minutes.

Yakushima's signature catch is tobiuo, the flying fish that shoal in the warm seas around the island, and Shiosai, a well-loved restaurant in the port town of Miyanoura, is among the best places to eat it. The classic dish is tobiuo no karaage, a whole flying fish deep-fried so that even the wings turn crisp and edible, sweet white flesh under a light crackle, served with island rice and miso; there is sashimi and first-mountain trout too. After a wet morning in the forest, a hot fried-fish set in a simple harbour dining room is exactly the lunch you want. Miyanoura is the island's main port and a good place to refuel and dry off before the afternoon's sights.

Flying-fish set about ¥1,000-2,000 (approx., 2026); daytime hours, occasional closed days. In Miyanoura port. Allow about 60 minutes.

The Yakusugi Museum, on the hill above Anbo, is the place to understand what makes the island's cedars extraordinary before or after you walk among them. Yakusugi are the cedars of Yakushima over a thousand years old — the slow growth in the island's poor granite soil and wet climate makes their wood dense and resin-rich, so they live for millennia where mainland cedars last a few hundred years. The museum shows a vast cross-section you can count the centuries on, explains the Edo-period logging that spared the oldest giants, and displays a living branch of the famous Jomon Sugi. It is a compact, well-made stop that deepens everything you see in the forest, and a dry, calm hour between the morning ravine and the afternoon falls.

About ¥600 (approx., 2026); daytime hours, check the day's closing. On the hill above Anbo. Allow about 45 minutes.

Senpiro-no-taki is the island's most dramatic waterfall view: a 60-metre fall plunging down a V-shaped gorge beside one of the largest single slabs of exposed granite in Japan, a vast pale wall of rock that the river has cut over ages, so that the white water and the immense grey stone fill the whole gorge. From the observation deck across the valley you take it all in at once, the fall a thin bright ribbon against the rock and the forest crowding green to the edges. The name means a thousand fathoms, the old way of saying the rock is too huge to grasp. It is a five-minute walk from the car park to the deck, an easy, spectacular close to the first day before checking in to bathe and dine at the resort.

Free; deck a 5-minute walk from the car park, daytime access. On the south-east side near Anbo. Allow about 45 minutes.

Yakusugi Land, despite the theme-park name, is a quiet high-altitude forest reserve of ancient cedars, the easiest place on the island to walk among thousand-year trees without a hard trek. A network of looping boardwalk trails, from a 30-minute stroll to a longer 150-minute circuit, leads through mossy, stream-laced forest to named giants — the Buddhasugi, the Sennensugi and others — their huge gnarled trunks rising out of the green. Because it sits high on the mountain road the air is cool and often misty, the cedars looming out of cloud, and the well-graded paths make it accessible to almost anyone. It is the gentlest way to stand beneath the famous yakusugi, and a beautiful, contemplative morning in the heart of the World Heritage forest.

About ¥500 (¥200 off if combined with Shiratani); roughly 9:00-17:00. High on the mountain road off Anbo. Allow about 120 minutes.

Ohko-no-taki, on the south-west coast, is the largest waterfall on Yakushima and one of the hundred famous falls of Japan, an 88-metre torrent that crashes straight down a sheer cliff face into a wide rocky basin you can walk right up to. Unlike the distant view of Senpiro, here you stand at the foot of the fall in the spray and the roar, the whole cliff streaming with water after the island's frequent rain, cool mist drifting over the boulders. It is a complete change of mood from the still high forest — raw, loud and elemental — and a fine reason to make the drive around the green south coast. Sure-footed visitors can rock-hop to the very base; everyone gets the thunder and the cold clean air.

Free; an open falls, daytime access. On the south-west coast. Allow about 45 minutes.

Nagata Inakahama, on the north-west coast, is a long curve of coarse pale granite sand and the most important loggerhead-turtle nesting beach in the North Pacific, a Ramsar wetland where hundreds of sea turtles haul out to lay their eggs each summer. By day it is simply a beautiful, wild beach — pale sand, blue water, the green mountains rising straight behind and, across the strait, the small island of Kuchinoerabu — and one of the best places on Yakushima to watch the sun go down into the sea. In nesting season, from about May to July, the beach is protected at night and visited only on guided turtle-watching tours, so the eggs and hatchlings are not disturbed. A wide, restful coastal close to two days in the forest.

Free by day; night access restricted and guide-led in nesting season (about May-July). On the north-west coast. Allow about 60 minutes.