Japan

4:45 My internal clock wakes me up there's a hint of daylight and I dash out of bed to make the 5:00 a.m. train and I actually catch it.

On a bench in the train station in Shimanokoshi I meet two Japanese hikers who are going the opposite way. I encounter them again somewhere in the middle to great shouting and yelling and having fun seeing each other again. Missed getting their picture.

What an unbelievable place to hike, it is yet another sunny seventies day. While walking I am startled by a Serow, a type of Japanese deer. It doesn't run off and just stands there in the woods looking at me so I stand still and look back at it. As I'm standing quietly there for some 10 minutes it finally goes about its business and I get to observe it in it's natural habitat. They were almost extinct and in 1955 the Japanese government intervened. Their numbers have recovered completely, but according to my Japanese trekking friend it is a rare sighting.

Being still in the woods has its rewards. Forest bathing in absolute quiet on the edge of a cliff overlooking the water through the trees, all I could hear was the distant rhythmic rumbling of a diesel engine of a ship far ashore. Bird song played the chorus. It's a deep feeling of pre-historic nature.

With time left on my hands I managed to walk another 6K to get another viewpoint on the shore. Back at the train station I run into my bunk mate from the hostel who has all kinds of questions for me as he is hiking this section tomorrow. We spend the evening discussing everything I saw and get him prepared.En savoir plus