G’day all, I trust this post finds you well! Today’s post is about a busy day trip my wife and I took from Fukuoka back in May last year to the beautiful Kyushu region of Itoshima, taking in four major sites whilst we were there via train, bus, and taxi!

Whilst in Itoshima we visited four key points –

1/ Shiraito Waterfalls

2/ The Raizan Sennyoji Temple

3/ Keya (in search of the Keya No Ohta Caves)

4/ Sakurai Futamigaura Couple Stones

1/ Shiraito Waterfalls

None of these four places are close to each other and so we needed a town, or train station, to base ourselves at and that was Chikuzen Maebaru. There is a direct train regularly from the main train station in Fukuoka, Hakata Station. From there it gets a bit more tricky. On both sides of the station there are bus terminals. On the left side from the direction we were travelling TO Chikuzen Maebaru, the quieter side of the station, we caught this very cute community bus coloured yellow with green dinosaurs on the outside. A mini bus which runs every hour or so, cost was around 200 – 300 yen you need exact change. I can’t find the timetable online, but you get a good look at it at the bus stand in the vlog I did.

It’s a 30 minute ride to the end of the line, and we found ourselves in this little town with a 30 – 40 minute uphill hike to the falls. The walk is through some of the most magical woodland and there are several falls on the way, some of which are nearly as impressive as the Shiraito Waterfalls themselves! It’s steep at points but I survived! Phone reception was patchy up there so I recommend having some offline maps handy. Once you find the track from the town its easy, just getting to the start point, probably 400 – 500 metres from the bus shelter is the issue.

The falls are very pretty in a beautiful spot. There’s a huge carpark for those with a car and there’s a spot for fishing, a couple of restaurants and shops as well. It was quiet on the day we went but it would have been a week day. Due to the steep and slightly slippery nature of the path we took we elected to walk back on the road, which took about the same amount of time despite being much longer as it was all downhill. Then it was a bus back to Chikuzen Maebaru Station.

2/ Raizan Sennyoji Temple

This ancient temple theoretically you could visit from the falls. I tried to get an Uber from the falls as once there the reception did improve a bit, but unsurprisingly none came to the call of the app and we took the bus back. We then got ourselves a taxi for the 20 minute ride to the temple. There is a bus but it was not running at the time and I think it might be limited to the weekends and public holidays.

A twenty-minute ride each way AND waiting for us cost a total of 6750 yen which is around $70AUD or $45USD which I thought was more than reasonable. All these hills on the west of Chikuzen Maebaru are fully forested and it’s really quite magical.

So is this ancient temple was a strategic point on the side of a hill with a view across to the ocean back in the day, is a Buddhist temple complex really with a number of small temples inside, lovely grounds, lots of use of moss too and a small garden of Buddhas which was kind of cool as well. We weren’t sure if we had the time to do this one as part of the day trip, but were very glad we decided to.

3/ Keya

After returning to the Chikuzen Maebaru Station, on the opposite side to the first bus we caught another community bus, this one much bigger, to the town of Keya out on a little peninsula. This journey was about 40 minutes. What was looking like the highlight of the day was a boat trip to the Keya No Ohta, these amazing caves on the coast from the Keya Port, by far the most popular thing to do at Keya.

However, we arrived by bus and walked to the Keya Port, and the weather was too windy for boats which I suspect is a common occurrence. Which is a pity because the photos online looked spectacular.

We did take a little coastal walk up the hill to the Observatory Deck. So did everyone else actually and there was a 15 minute line to get up on the deck! You could see the rock that houses the caves from the opposite side and the coastline was pretty impressive. Down the hill there was a tori (gateway) near the ocean and people were, I dunno, hanging out? It was still worth visiting Keya for and hour and half or so and walking around and taking in the scenery.

4/ Sakurai Futamigaura Couples Stones

To get to the last destination for the day, it was another bus back to Chikuzen Maebaru station. There is a bus that connects these locations but it’s a slow bus and I would have had to wait a long time for it, and in the end it was better to take a bus back to Chikuzen Maebaru, then a train a few stops back towards Fukuoka to Kyudai Gakkentoshi Station, then a 30-minute bus to the ‘Couples Stones’.

The bus ride is very scenic and there are a few nice sandy beaches on the way. The Couples Stones are two rocks out in the ocean, not that far maybe 150-200 metres, with a single rope connecting them. In front of them someone erected a white tori (gateway) and now people come and visit for the ‘perfect shot’ I guess. I mean, there was a bit of a crowd there so it is popular. It’s very pretty and scenic, but honestly I got off, took photos, did an outro to my vlog and then caught the next bus back to the trainline which gave me less than 10 minutes. And I think that was about all I needed although I wouldn’t have said ‘no’ to an extra ten lol.

The buses are great but infrequent. From here it was bus to train back to Fukuoka, and the day was done. It had been a long one it took around 8 or more hours to do it this way. If you had a car, well that would really help by moving faster and eliminating waiting times all together. You’re going to want good weather too, which we were blessed with but still too windy (didn’t think it was that windy to be honest) for the Keya No Ohto boat which was the big disappointment of the day because – when am I ever likely to be back??? Such is life I guess!

Thanks for reading today, take care wherever you are in the world, and…. May the Journey Never End!