Kohechi Revisited

My father turned 70 last week. We gathered in Norwich to mark it, and somewhere between the cake and the catching up my mind wandered back to a 5-day walk we took together almost ten years ago. In 2016 I walked the Kumano Kodō Kohechi (熊野古道・小辺路), one of the ancient pilgrimage routes through the Kii mountains (紀伊山地), from Kōyasan (高野山) in the north down to Shingū (新宮) on the coast. The following June I walked it again, this time in reverse, from south to north, with my father and Chen, who would later become my wife. I never wrote about that second walk since I had already covered the route after the first trip and saw little point repeating myself. But a milestone birthday stirs up memories, and as we’re all getting older that walk in 2017 feels more precious than it did at the time. Mt. Fuji from the shinkansen You can read my 2016 posts for day-by-day details of the route, but I wanted to share some of my favourite photos from the 2017 walk along with a few moments that have stayed…