Muroto to Nahari, 25.6 km
The day started dry but didn’t stay that way for long, so various combinations of poncho, umbrella and nothing but our giant hats to keep the rain off were tried. Because of the heat and the humidity getting wet with rain is gradually becoming the preferred option!
First stop was at the Lawson convenience store, a mere 50 metres from our lodging. Lawson has good food but nowhere to sit – fortunately there was a covered bus stop nearby where we enjoyed our coffee and pastries (and perhaps transgressed a few Japanese social norms about eating in public!
Temple 26 – Kongochoji (sometimes referred to as the Whale Temple) is a short, sharp climb up from the coast, and a slow treacherous descent on a sloping path made of slimy green rocks.
We survived the descent and were rewarded by stumbling upon a burger shack beside the highway. Covered seating was a great incentive to stop and support a local business. The burgers were really good as well!
Just past the burger shack was the historic old town of Kiragawa – or at least the main street was historic. Lots of very old buildings and numerous small businesses, but the town is something of an anomaly on a stretch of coast that is very economically depressed. Leaving Muroto there were probably.ore shuttered businesses than ines in operation.
As the remainder of the day was more mind numbing side of the highway walking, Max and Sam took a bus to our destination in order to give their various ailments a chance to recover. The ocean was very calm on this side of the cape, so the defences were not being put to the test.
Our hostess in our Henro house tonight is quite a character. We’d booked to have dinner included but she decided we’d go for ramen instead. We set off on a 10 minute drive to a brand new ramen restaurant not knowing whether we were expected to walk home or not! All was good however, as she had dinner with us – quite the experience as first you had to buy a ticket for the dish you wanted. Even Google translate was struggling! But we received giant, delicious portions of ramen – butter ramen according to the list on the ticket vending machine, with the slab of butter on the top proving that the dish was appropriately named. Max and Sam ordered large, but we didn’t initially notice that the “small ” portion was given to Max. The extra 15 km I walked compared to the boys must have had some bearing on appetites as I was the only one to eat my entire portion (I’m now on my bed in the recovery position writing this blog post!)
Our hostess was a school teacher and her husband, a rice farmer. But prices for rice are so low that no one wants to grow it anymore. They had four sons and none of them wanted to be farmers – which supports the theory that so much farmland has been abandoned due to lack of farmers and it not being a viable vocation anymore.
2saunter 