Southwest Ehime · UwajimaNo.655★★Open in map →

Yusu Mizugaura Terraced Fields

localOff the trail — and worth it

A headland above the Uwa Sea, cut into dry-stone steps and still farmed for potatoes. The Mizugaura terraces hold a national designation as a cultural landscape, and you can walk up the same stone steps the farmers use.

FromUwajima Station
~60 minUwajima Bus, Komobuchi Line
Get off atMizugaura (Uwajima Bus, Komobuchi Line)
On foot
Yusu Mizugaura Terraced Fields

Directions ↗

The sweet spot

The terraces are not hidden. They carry a national designation and appear on Ehime's own tourism listings. They stay uncrowded because they sit at the end of a headland road an hour from Uwajima by bus, and because there is no ticket gate or exhibition to organise a visit around. What you get instead is a slope that people still farm.

Where it is

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What to look for — in walking order

Dandan Chayathe shorefront rest house and produce shop run by the preservation NPO that maintains the terraces
The dry-stone riserswalls of small stones averaging over a metre high, laid without mortar to hold each bed in place
The climbing stepsflights of stone set into the walls at intervals, the routes farmers use to reach the upper beds
The view over the inletthe Uwa Sea below, with the hamlet's harbour and aquaculture rafts spread across the water

How to actually get there

Uwajima Station → Mizugaura (Uwajima Bus, Komobuchi Line, about 60 min).
Mizugaura stop → the foot of the terraces along the shore road, past the rest house.
Climb the stone steps between the beds, then return the same way in time for your bus.

Uwajima Bus, Komobuchi Line from Uwajima Station: JR Uwajima Station →(Uwajima Bus, Komobuchi Line, about 60 min)→ Mizugaura. The road traces the indented Uwa Sea coast the whole way, so the ride runs longer than the map distance suggests. Check the day's timetable before you leave, because this is a rural service with few runs.
Return from Mizugaura: The same Komobuchi Line service runs back to Uwajima Station. Departures are few. Note your return time at the stop before you start up the slope, because there is no frequent alternative down this headland.

Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

Mizugaura sits on a narrow headland in the Yusu district of Uwajima, on Ehime's Uwa Sea coast. Behind the hamlet the ground rises at an average gradient of about forty degrees. Farmers cut that slope into steps and held each step with a wall of small stones laid dry, without mortar. Farming and fishing were always paired here. The same families worked the slope above and the sardine grounds in the bay below. What the terraces preserve is less a view than the shape of that double livelihood.

How to enjoy it

Build the visit around the return bus rather than the light, because services down this headland are few and the last one back sets the length of your stay. Allow time to climb the steps instead of photographing from the road. If you drive, the coastal prefectural route out from Uwajima is half the trip.

Background & history

The crop on this slope changed with each era. Barley and sweet potatoes were planted from the late Edo period. When silk took hold in the Meiji era the beds went over to mulberry for silkworms. Sweet potatoes returned on a large scale before and during the war, and citrus replaced them from 1955. Much of the terracing was abandoned after that, and what remains is planted mainly with potatoes. On 26 July 2007 the government selected the site as an Important Cultural Landscape under its category for farmland scenery.

Before you go

Cash: The terraces are a working farm landscape with no ticket office. Drivers will find free parking down by the shore. Carry cash for the bus and for anything you buy at the rest house.
Good to know: Everything above the shore road is cultivated ground. Keep to the stone steps and the access paths and stay off the beds. The slope is fully open to wind off the bay and the stones turn slick in rain, so plan a daylight visit in dry weather.
Another way: By car from Uwajima, take Ehime Prefectural Route 346 along the Yusu coast, a winding coastal drive out to the end of the headland.
After you get off: From the Mizugaura stop the terraced slope is already above you. Walk along the shore road to the rest house at the foot of the fields, and the stone steps begin behind it.