Hashigui-iwa

Hashigui-iwa is a line of rock pillars marching out to sea. Some forty spires and towers of pale stone, large and small, stand in single file for about 850 metres from the shore at Kushimoto, near the southern tip of the Kii Peninsula, towards the island of Kii-Ōshima. Their name means "bridge-pile rocks": seen along the coast, they look like the piers of a bridge whose deck was never laid.

The explanation lies 15 million years back. Volcanic activity forced molten rhyolite up into layers of soft mudstone, where it set in a long, narrow wall. The sea and weather have since worn away the softer mudstone much faster than the hard igneous rock, leaving the pillars standing on a wave-cut platform. Scattered across that platform are large boulders lying well away from the pillars, and research suggests that many were tossed there by the great tsunami of the Hōei earthquake of 1707.

Local tradition has its own account. The monk Kōbō Daishi is said to have made a wager with the mischievous demon Amanojaku that he could build a bridge from Kushimoto to the island offshore in a single night. When the piles were almost finished, the demon, seeing he was about to lose, imitated a cock's crow; believing dawn had come, the monk gave up and left only the piles behind.

The rocks belong to Yoshino-Kumano National Park and are protected nationally both as a Place of Scenic Beauty and as a Natural Monument. They are best known for sunrise, when the sun climbs out of the Pacific behind the row of silhouettes, and they are listed among Japan's hundred finest sunrise spots. At low tide it is possible to walk out to Benten-jima, the islet in the middle of the line, where a vermilion torii leads to a small shrine set against the rock.

Getting there

The rocks line the shore beside National Route 42, about 2.4 km from central Kushimoto in Wakayama Prefecture; the roadside station Michi-no-Eki Kushimoto Hashiguiiwa stands opposite. Kii-Hime station on the JR Kisei Main Line is within walking distance, and Kushimoto station is a little further along the coast. The nearest airport is Nanki-Shirahama Airport (SHM), about 45 km away.