East Hiroshima · Seto Inland SeaNo.610★★★Open in map →
Okunoshima
— Hiroshima's rabbit island and former poison gas plant
A small island in the Seto Inland Sea where hundreds of feral rabbits live among the ruins of a wartime poison gas plant. A short ferry ride from Tadanoumi on the mainland, and small enough to walk right around.
- FromMihara Station
- ~45 minJR train, then ferry
- Get off atTadanoumi Station (JR Kure Line)
- From there
- Okunoshima
Where it is
25 more notes in Hiroshima · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- Pier No. 2the landing point for the Tadanoumi ferry, on the island's eastern shore
- Poison Gas Museuma small municipal museum holding workers' logbooks, uniforms and manufacturing equipment
- Okunoshima Visitor Centeran information building beside the museum, facing out across the Inland Sea
- Nagaura storehouse ruinsroofless concrete tanks and walls standing in the trees above the road
- The shoreline loop roada level circuit of the island that closes the walk back at the pier
How to actually get there
- Mihara Station → Tadanoumi Station (JR Kure Line, about 22 min).
- Tadanoumi Station → Tadanoumi Port (walk about 7 min).
- Tadanoumi Port → Okunoshima Pier No. 2 (ferry, about 15 min).
- Walk to the Poison Gas Museum first, then take the loop road around the island back to the pier.
- JR Kure Line from Mihara, then the Tadanoumi ferry
- Mihara Station →(JR Kure Line, about 22 min)→ Tadanoumi Station, then about seven minutes on foot to Tadanoumi Port and a ferry of about fifteen minutes to Pier No. 2. Mihara is a Sanyo Shinkansen stop, which makes this the simplest approach from outside the prefecture.
- Return from Pier No. 2
- Ferries run back to Tadanoumi Port from the same pier, and JR Kure Line trains run from Tadanoumi Station toward Mihara. Both thin out in the evening, and the island has one hotel and no other lodging, so check the last sailing when you arrive rather than when you want to leave.
About the place
Okunoshima lies off Tadanoumi, in the city of Takehara, and measures about four kilometres around — small enough to walk in an afternoon. A road loops the shoreline past beaches, a campsite and the island's single hotel. Feral rabbits graze in the open along it, untroubled by people, and they are why most visitors come. Behind them, half-swallowed by trees, stand the brick and concrete shells of gun batteries and gas storehouses. There is no town on the island and nothing is built up.
How to enjoy it
The crossing takes fifteen minutes and the museum is a short walk from Pier No. 2, so you can take the serious half of the island first and keep the afternoon for the loop road. The museum opens at 9:00 and stops admitting visitors at 15:40, well before the last sailing, which makes it easy to lose by leaving it late. Put food on the ground rather than offering it from your hand, and never feed the rabbits on the road.
Background & history
The army began making poison gas on Okunoshima in 1929 and kept at it until the war ended in 1945. To keep the plant secret, the island was left blank on published maps. Older still are the gun batteries left from the fortress works that once guarded this stretch of the Inland Sea. Takehara City opened the Poison Gas Museum in 1988, building it around objects the workers themselves left behind.
Before you go
- Cash
- The Poison Gas Museum charges 150 yen for adults, so carry small change for it. The public car park at Tadanoumi Port is free, and there is a free car park by Pier No. 2 for vehicles brought over on the ferry.
- Before you go
- The museum closes over the New Year period, and both it and the ferries keep shorter hours than a mainland attraction. The loop road is a shoreline circuit with little shade, which matters in high summer.
- Another way
- From Hiroshima, take the JR Kure Line along the coast, or the Sanyo Line to Mihara and change there — Tadanoumi sits between the two ends of the Kure Line. By car, Tadanoumi Port is reached from the Kochi interchange on the Sanyo Expressway, with free parking at the port.
- After you get off
- From Tadanoumi Station, walk about seven minutes to Tadanoumi Port, buy the ferry ticket there, and cross to Pier No. 2 on the island.