Nino Shima

Day 32

We spent the majority of today continuing to explore Hiroshima city in the beautiful sun and warmth! We strolled through Hiroshima castle grounds and enjoyed the cherry blossoms of several of Hiroshimas parks today. The sky was a brilliant blue and it was just nice to enjoy the peaceful parts of the city that are more hidden away to the main bulk of the tourists. We saw lots of tortoise and koi fish in one of the ponds which Jacob got very excited about and took lots of pictures of whilst I enjoyed a slightly strange. bridge! It was a very steep bridge and after gingerly climbing to the top I had to get a celebratory photo! We also stumbled across another small bamboo forest and so many stunning cherry blossoms it was just nice to finally not be seeing dead trees!!

Day 33
Today we decided to head out to one of the islands to explore and get away from the bustle of the city so we hopped on a ferry from Hiroshima port which took us to Ninoshima. Standing outside and enjoying the sea breeze and mountains dotting the horizon we arrived at Ninoshima port. I’m not sure I can call it a port- more of a pontoon! We wondered through the streets and the island was absolutely dead! Jacob and I have nicknamed it pensioners island as everyone else on the ferry was like 75+ and clearly come into Hiroshima for a morning coffee and a bit of shopping! The streets were deadly quiet with a few wondering cats here and there. The corrugated iron houses and slightly falling apart wooden huts lined the narrow streets. Ninoshima island is known for Akinokofuji mountain which is meant to give you stunning views back of the sea of all the islands and also of Hiroshima.

So we found the start to the trail and began heading up, what started off as a nicely pathed route ended up quite the opposite!! After 20 minutes or so you are weaving through bamboo hoping you are vaguely heading in the right direction. Feeling relieved to leave the bamboo behind I thought the route would be a bit easier from here on, how wrong I was! For a while, you walk through an old very narrow river bed before having to scramble up rocks for the last 400 meters!! It was definitely tiring especially in the humidity but the views did not disappoint!! Reaching the summit I collapsed onto a rock and the view was absolutely breathtaking. The cityscape of Hiroshima in the distance surrounded by deep blue sea with islands jutting out and painting the horizon. It was gorgeous and once I’d stopped huffing and puffing it felt worth the hike!!

Enjoying the view and having some snacks to help fuel us for the hike down we gingerly made our way back down the trail.

After wondering back through the streets we discovered that there is only one restaurant on this island that was closed so we headed back to the port to catch the ferry back to mainland Hiroshima where we grabbed some food before turning in for the day. Another fun day exploring!Read more