Central Yamaguchi · MineNo.586★★★Open in map →
Akiyoshido Cave
— Limestone cavern beneath the Akiyoshidai plateau
A limestone cavern under the karst plateau of Akiyoshidai, entered from a wide mouth in the valley. The path runs one way through the chambers, and an elevator part-way along lifts you out onto the grassland instead of sending you back the way you came.
- FromShin-Yamaguchi Station
- ~45 minBus from Shin-Yamaguchi
- Get off atAkiyoshido bus stop (valley entrance)
- On foot
- Akiyoshido Cave
Where it is
13 more notes in Yamaguchi · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- The approach streetshops and eating houses lining the walk from the bus stop to the entrance
- The cave moutha wide arch in the valley wall with a stream running out of it
- The Hundred Platesterraced rimstone pools stepping down the floor, the cave's signature
- The Golden Columna tall flowstone pillar, the emblem the cave puts on its own posters
- The elevator exit onto Akiyoshidaia lift from mid-cave to the plateau, the karst lookout and the grassland
How to actually get there
- Shin-Yamaguchi Station to the Akiyoshido bus stop by bus.
- Walk up the approach street from the stop to the cave mouth.
- Follow the paved path through the chambers, past the Hundred Plates and the Golden Column.
- Take the elevator up to the plateau for the karst lookout, or turn back the way you came.
- Bus from Shin-Yamaguchi Station
- Buses for Akiyoshido leave from Shin-Yamaguchi Station, the Shinkansen stop for this part of the prefecture, and the ride takes roughly forty to forty-five minutes. This is a rural route, so check the return departures as you get off.
- Return from the Akiyoshido stop
- Buses back toward Shin-Yamaguchi leave from the same stop at the foot of the approach street. If you come out of the elevator exit on the plateau you are at a different stop entirely, so decide which end you are leaving from before you go underground.
About the place
The cave lies under the Akiyoshidai plateau, and the stretch open to visitors is a paved path of about one kilometre through a chain of chambers. Beyond it the surveyed passages run on for more than ten kilometres. Water did all the work: rain sinking through the limestone above, hollowing the hill from the inside over a span no one has to imagine, because the process has not stopped. The best-known formation is a staircase of shallow rimstone pools called the Hundred Plates, each rimmed like a dish and filled to the brim. A stream still comes out of the cave mouth and runs off down the valley.
How to enjoy it
Walking in and riding out is the trick worth planning for, because the elevator turns a there-and-back cave visit into a route that ends on the plateau. There are three ways in and out — the valley mouth, the Kurotani entrance and the elevator — and the buses serving them are not the same, which is the one detail that catches people. The cave holds a single temperature all year, so what you are wearing outside is a poor guide to what you will want inside.
Background & history
The limestone of Akiyoshidai was laid down long before anything walked on it, and the plateau above the cave is among the largest karst landscapes in Japan. Rain has been draining off it into the rock for so long that the hill is hollow underneath. The cave is protected as a Special Natural Monument, the highest rank Japan gives a natural site, and the plateau around it is a quasi-national park. Neither designation is decoration, because a formation that grows at the speed of dripping water does not come back once it is broken.
Before you go
- Cash
- There is an admission charge for the cave, paid at the entrance, and the rate is not the same all year. The plateau and the lookout above cost nothing to walk. Confirm the current rate at the ticket window rather than in advance.
- Before you go
- Inside, the path is wet underfoot and lit only where it needs to be, with steps and handrails on the steeper sections; shoes with grip matter more than a torch. On the plateau there is no shelter of any kind, and the grassland is fully exposed to wind and rain.
- Another way
- There is a second stop at the Kurotani entrance on the plateau side, which lets you walk the chambers in the other direction and come down into the valley. By car there are municipal car parks at the valley entrance and free parking at the Kurotani and elevator entrances.
- After you get off
- From the Akiyoshido bus stop the cave mouth is about 600 metres up the valley, ten minutes on foot along an approach street of shops and eating houses that ends at the entrance.