{"id":1971,"date":"2025-04-26T23:14:55","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T23:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/?p=1971"},"modified":"2025-04-26T23:55:23","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T23:55:23","slug":"sat-26th-april-hike-rikuchu-nakano-to-itsukushima-shrine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/?p=1971","title":{"rendered":"Sat 26th April – Hike (Rikuchu-Nakano to Itsukushima Shrine)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DW:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Michinko Coastal Trek walk is not a continuous one in the way that our Flinders or Bibbulmum tracks walk were. Instead it is more of a series of best day hikes out of a longer area that we use trains and taxis to get to and from each end of a days walk from. The Hachinohe train line runs down the side of the whole coast and makes it easy to transit between locations. There are very few trains (2 each way a day for some), which makes my scheduling and navigation skills in hot demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today had some (non-Declan related) directional issues at the start of the walk that meant we were tight on time for the remainder. It was over 20km by the time all the film-flam had occurred with a lot of up and down over the coast. We suspect this will have been the hardest day as a result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a really good walk though. The coast is distinctly different from an Australian coast and the weather was very nice except for the last 5 minutes where it started to rain. We were the only people on the entire track that we saw, except for three people who appeared to be camping and carrying comically large matresses at a partially closed campground. The area is not desolate or remote though. There are small towns and houses everywhere and a key feature of the coastline in small harbours with concrete seawalls every few kilometres big enough for a few small boats connected by road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CR:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Small towns we pass along the way are a lot nicer than I expected. Many of the residents are outside tending to their gardens, and most have at least one restaurant. Declan and I believe that small villiages and towns in Japan are much nicer than Australian equivalents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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DW: The Hachinohe Grand Hotel has a weirdly good breakfast for a 3 star hotel. Western and Japanese style buffets with their own bread baked in house and the gooiest french toast I have ever experienced. The coffee is god awful though.
CR: For breakfast we get a delightful mix of: sashimi (tuna, salmon, squid and octopus), tasty french toast, beef stomach stir fry, mochi, hash brown and scrambled eggs. Each hotel seems to feature a local produce. In Hachinohe, in addition to the fresh fish, it was locally grown apples. We have apple juice and apple curry.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: It was at this point I realised that the other side of that promising sandbar went down to about chest deep. So began our trudge back up the hill and frantically chasing our schedule all day.
CR: This was a really long detour that added on two hours to our walk right at the beginning. As we realised we needed the detour Declan turned to me, looked me in the eye (as if to say: you must understand this is serious) and said “this is no longer a fun day”.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: I definitely wasn’t posing for this shot.
CR: Joe, if you see this photo on Tinder, let me know.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: These signs are on the roads leading to the various harbours that indicate the height of the 2011 tsunami waters. This one was 18m above sea level.
CR: All the tsunami signs are unnerving. I don’t want to think about mass casualty potential as I complete this Coastal walk. I am terrified when public announcement plays over loudspeakers on the abandoned coast. What are they saying? Is there a tsunami warning? This is deeply unsettling. We walk on.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: These small harbours dot the coastline. There are concrete berms several metres thick and high typically facing the ocean. I assume this is protection from smaller tsunamis and typhoons for boats. It gives the impression of a very considered national approach towards disaster.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: Much of the day was walking along the coast and stumbling onto views like this between the trees.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: Caitlin is still going strong, but the detours have taken their toll.
CR: For a 20km day there was actually a lot of up and down, as you climb one coastal cliff and then descend to climb the next.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: This lookout was particularly impressive. As with all lookouts, it looks better in person. The sun even came out here for a little bit. There were more black tailed gulls here and a large eagle soaring around menacingly.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: A little shrine overlooking a particularly picturesque spot. I don\u2019t really get Shintoism. Hopefully I get Caitlin though.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: The path often diverges from the coast a bit to go through pine forests. These are dark and foreboding with light struggling to reach the ground. In this photo you can see one up ahead. The tape in the foreground is a marker of the trail and seems to be randomly located at various points.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: These woods look like they would be thick with bears. The absolute silence of the area, suscipious scats on the track and black piles of pine tree leaves all bring an eerie feeling of otherwordliness.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: The end! It started to rain right in the last 5 mins though to put a damper on things.
CR: It was very, very cold at the end. The taxi (arranged by Auswalk) turned up on time. This sparked joy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: Sushi for dinner. The random restaurants and cafes in these towns have no business consistently being this good. There must be some fundamental difference I am missing for Japan\u2019s economy to make sense.
CR: A delightful dinner of sashimi (mostly eaten by this stage in the photo) and sushi. I like how the sushi is served on the counter. The only two other diners bought a big bottle of sake and Declan noted how the hostess was putting a name tag around it. He concludes they are locals and they buy a bottle and then can have it over multiple sittings at the restaurant. The TV was on and the restaurant was warm. This is a nice place to be on Saturday. Afterwards we went to a coffee shop that had the most elaborate drinks. Somehow it was open until 8pm in this town that calls to mind semi-rural\u00a0 Russia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: It was windy and rainy when we got to Kuji. We borrowed some umbrellas for reception and Caitlin’s proceeded to invert in a small breeze. She was required to beg for forgiveness as a result of this shame as having ruined the trust of the front desk. They were unconcerned. I feel this happens most times an umbrella is lent out.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tired.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-japan-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1971"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2007,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971\/revisions\/2007"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}