Yakushima Island Day 2

Today we head up into the interior mountains again with our rental car to find more hiking.

We'll plan to do the whole loop, with hopefully easier going than yesterday, but with multiple water crossings.

Here's the entry station where we pay a small fee to enter.

The first stream crossing...

That's a rocky stream; and that's one way to deal with a tree falling across the trail.

We continue up the trail passing this shorter loop option.

Lot's of previous cedar logging action had gone down here...

Living cedars continue on reaching for the sky...

Another stream crossing...

Grand old cedars...

Ahhhhh, a tree fell in the forest and took out the trail - a new trail section was cut to the left.

The third stream crossing...

The fourth stream crossing...    How is this smallish tree limb causing that huge trunk to react to it???

The final and fifth stream crossing...

The sika deer (Cervus nippon), also known as the Northern spotted deer or the Japanese deer, is a species of deer native to much of East Asia and introduced to other parts of the world.  Previously found from northern Vietnam in the south to the Russian Far East in the north it is now uncommon except in Japan, where the species is overabundant.

Back to our car, we head back down the mountain getting some nice views.

Now down near the coast, we tour a Shōchū distillery.

And buy a bottle to take along with us.

We continue along the coast to catch various sights.

A banyan tree is a fig that develops accessory trunks from roots that drop out of branches aloft, allowing the tree to spread outwards indefinitely.  What looks like a grove is just one tree.

Back at the "ranch" - this is a curious group of little cottages found on booking.com .