Iriomote and Yubu Island – Tropical Rainforest in Japan

Photo Equipment

In contrast to the trips before we decided to choose a guided tour to visit Iriomote and Yubu. Reason for that is that you have to book busses and boats anyway to see most of the islands so a guided tour was the convenient choice. In my camera bag was the Olympus OM-D E-M1 with the M.Zuiko 60mm Macro lens and the Fuji X-T10 with the XF23mm F1.4 lens. I had the macro lens with me because I wanted to take photos of the big and small animals on the islands.

Iriomote

Iriomote is a big island, nevertheless you will only be able to see a fraction of it because it’s mostly covered with rain forest. We took a ferry to get from Ishigaki to Iriomote where our bus for the day trip was already waiting for us. The bus took us to a river where we took another boat that brought us to a path where we could hike to waterfalls while enjoying the rain forest around us. These are some impressions of the first part of the tour including the lunch afterwards:

Transfer to Yubu Island

The tiny island Yubu can be reached by using the Water Buffalo carriages that carry you through the shallow water from Iriomote to Yubu. You can listen to some local music the coachman plays for you on your way. See a small video about the short journey and some photos below:

Yubu Island

Yubu is a very small island but it has some highlights to offer. Besides the Butterfly House you can see Fruit Bats if you are lucky. We were really lucky and saw a baby fruit bat – very cute! There is also a Shell House and you can get closer to the Water Buffalos that took you there.

These are some impressions of Yubu Island:

This was the last article about my journey to Okinawa in November 2015 – I hope you enjoyed it! Please feel free to provide me with you comments below so I know that you either liked it or to get an idea of what I should change to make the articles more interesting, thanks!