The Kumamoto prefectural tourism site gives the colour at Gokanosho as early to mid-November. The name covers five settlements — Momiki, Nitao, Hagi, Kurako and Shiihara — scattered through mountains that run from thirteen hundred to seventeen hundred metres, in the far interior of Yatsushiro city.

This is not a single viewpoint. The colour arrives across a whole area of forest and valley, and what concentrates it are the suspension bridges strung across the gorges and the ground around the waterfalls. Standing on a bridge puts you level with the canopy rather than under it, which is the difference between looking at a hillside and being inside one.

Much of it is seen from a car, and that is not a compromise here: the road between Momiki and Kurako runs through gradations of red and yellow for a long stretch, and the driving is a large part of what people come for. A foliage festival runs during the season, and traffic controls go up on some weekends as a result.

The distance is the thing to plan around. Gokanosho is a long way into the mountains from the coastal city, and a return trip in one day is mostly road. Enough visitors split it over two days that the area has been called a hidden country for as long as anyone has written about it — a description that still holds when the last bus has gone.