02
Michinoku Coastal Trail
5 days
To alternate visiting cities with more time in nature, we add 4 days of hiking along the Michinoku Trail to our schedule.
Hiking alongside the trail takes us from Miyako to the end, or beginning, of the Michinoku Coastal Trail in Hachinohe. We do not through-hike the trail but choose some parts of it to win some time. During our four days we hiked from Jodogahama beach to the Kyukamura Rikuchu-Miyako hotel, from our hotel in Hiraigakaiso to the Kitayamazaki cape, from the Kitayamazaki cape to Fudai and finally from the Tanesashi coast to Hachinohe. We move between the villages by train with our JR East pass. The backdrop of our hikes transforms from rugged coastlines to green forest landscapes and ports with concrete walls. A clear reminder of the Tsunami that devastated the region in 2011.
Along the way we meet enthusiastic Japanese hikers in their eighties, Canadian and Singaporean tourists and luckily no bears. We will still hear the maddening sound of our bear bells from our backpack for the next seven months. If I was a bear, I would run away as well. What did not run away, however, is a Japanese serow. Staring at us with its kind eyes while we suffer a minor heart attack.
When we arrive at the Kitayamazaki cape we have an ice cream in one of the cafés. The owner is a volunteer firefighter and at the time of the tsunami, he was at a beach clean-up with schoolchildren on one of the beaches we just passed. He spent days searching for victims. Due to the broken telephone connection, it took three days before he could inform his family, who knew he had been on the beach that day, that he was alive.
The hotels and ryokans along the trail are anything but cheap The hotels and ryokans along the trail are anything but cheap but provide great seafood and offer a very different experience from the Japanese cities. We finish off every day with a soak in the sento. On our second day we realize we might need to do something about the bites on our ankles. Keeping in mind the places we have stayed in Madagascar, it's possibly flea bites. We stay at a luxurious big hotel, but we have no time to enjoy our room. Anything that can handle high temperatures we put in the dryer, then in the washing machine and again in the dryer. The rest we treat with the hair dryer on a high setting. Our walk today was nothing against the exertion we are now putting in. But at least we do look zen in our yukata.