Ao no Domon

Ao no Domonhand-carved tunnelYabakeiZenkaiNakatsu

Oita · Nakatsu

33.4991°N, 131.1726°E

A monk named Zenkai arrived at the base of Kyoshuho cliff in 1735, found that travellers were being killed on a chain-assisted path across the rock face, and started digging a tunnel through it with a hammer and chisel. He funded the work by begging, hired help as donations allowed, and finished around 1764 — roughly thirty years of hand quarrying through solid rock. The completed tunnel carried a toll, which is sometimes described as Japan's first.

The modern road has widened most of it, but sections of the original bore survive alongside, with the chisel marks and the small light openings Zenkai cut through to the river still in place. You can walk them. Kyoshuho above was later bought by Fukuzawa Yukichi, born in Nakatsu, specifically to stop it being quarried away, and a path runs up over the top of the cliffs the tunnel goes through.

Essential Information

Opening Hours

Open at all hours

Closed: Open year-round

Entrance Fee

Free | Free public parking on the south side

Best Season

Late October–late November for autumn colour through the Yabakei gorge

Visit Duration

45 minutes for the tunnel; add 1 hour for the Kyoshuho ridge path

Getting There

Access Information

Motoyabakei-machi Hida, Nakatsu City. By car from Nakatsu Station; buses towards Yabakei run from the station. Free and open at all hours. Public car park with toilets on the south side of the tunnel, next to the trailhead for the Kyoshuho ridge path. The pedestrian section of the old tunnel runs beside the road; walk it rather than driving through.

Insider Guide

Premium

**Walk the old bore, do not drive past it.** The surviving hand-cut sections are a separate pedestrian passage beside the modern road, and they are the whole point. Ten minutes end to end. **Feel the chisel marks.** They are at head height on the left going north and they are not decorative — thirty years of a man and a hammer are literally the surface of the rock. **Kyoshuho ridge path takes about an hour.** It climbs over the cliffs the tunnel passes through, with drops onto the Yamakuni river. Not railed throughout. **Late October to late November for colour.** Yabakei is one of the more heavily visited autumn valleys in Kyushu and the road through the gorge backs up on November weekends. Early morning on a weekday is a different experience entirely. **Fukuzawa Yukichi bought the cliff.** The man on the ten-thousand-yen note grew up in Nakatsu and purchased Kyoshuho to prevent it being quarried. His childhood house in town is open to visitors.

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