I’m planning a trip to Japan and will be in the Osaka area early October. I’ve been looking forward to going to the Nijigen No Mori park on Awaji Island, especially for the Godzilla zip line. Multiple internet sites have instructions on how to get to the park by express bus particularly from Namba Station, near where I will be staying. However, for the life of me, I cannot find information about these busses online, how long it will take to get there, and if there’s an express bus back from the park to Namba. This has become mildly frustrating as each attraction requires a time sensitive reservation, and I wonder if anyone here can help me out. Thanks!
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Click ‘go by public transport’: https://nijigennomori.com/en/access/
I went in Oct/Nov last year and will try to add as much information as I can remember.
You can take a bus directly from the Jr Express (I think?) Bus Terminal at Osaka station. Just follow the signs for busses and look for the one to Nijigen no Mori. Mine left from gate 4, with Nijigen no Mori on the route and Sumoto shown. Pic attached below if it helps. The bus will probably have Naruto/Boruto all over it, but the gate it departs from will be very clearly marked as going to Nijigen no Mori. The ride should be about an hour and a half. JR Pass isn’t accepted, but IC card is. Tickets are also available from the ticket machines but maybe just use the IC card and make life easier on yourself – should cost about Â¥1,500 each way – but budget Â¥4,000 for the round trip to be safe. You can also take the same kinda bus right back to Osaka Station from the same place it’ll drop you off at, but be wary of the return journey as the timings are a bit weird and they don’t run as late as you’d expect. Take a pic of the timetable when you arrive so you can reference it and remember you will have to factor in the fairly long (20min plus depending on where you are walking from in the park) walk back to the stop to make it to the return bus on time.
Google maps should also have these routes listed for reference.
Pic of bus screen from Osaka to Nijigen no Mori:
https://ibb.co/t4rHpzp
The park website has directions for taking public transport- click the ‘go by public transport’ button to see the options. I agree that you need to watch your timing if you’re going all in one day.
https://nijigennomori.com/en/access/#access_top
I hope you have so much fun! I went to the Naruto park and it was so cool 🙂
unfortunately, I don’t believe this [site](https://www.bushikaku.net/search/osaka_hyogo/nanba_awaji/bus_option-toilet/bus_code-10031/) has english. But basically it’s about 2 hours. Heading there is at 8:30 or 9:30am, and return is at 3:38 or 4:43pm, looks like 2620 yen per trip (so x2 for round trip).
Note that return trip is a bit shorter, probably due to traffic？
The stop at nijigen no mori would be the Awaji Highway Oasis.
I made this trek in February to get to Dragon Quest Island, so I feel your pain. I went directly to Maiko Station, which is the one directly by the bridge to the island, and took the bus from there. You basically go up to the bridge from the station (the signage isn’t great, but we figured it out) and went to the first stop that got us near Nijigen no Mori.
I’ll be honest, if you can find one that will take you down to the Highway Oasis directly, that will help a ton, but I think a lot of them just dump you out on the side of the expressway, like ours did. We followed the signs, jumped a car barrier (sigh,) then finally found our way to the place you can buy a little tram ticket to take you into the park proper (right next to the Highway Oasis.) If your feet are in better shape than mine were, you can walk up the hill to it. I passed by the Godzilla mini-park on the way to Dragon Quest Island, it looked fun!