Ainan to Tsushima, 27 km
Another substantially fantastic day of walking – well, if we ignore the first 10 km! Leaving town it was the side of the highway for the first 10 km, and as the new motorway is only being completed in sections, there was a lot of truck traffic. Many henros continue to follow the highway all the way to Tsushima, but we opted to take the traditional route over the hill. It’s 2 km shorter, but involves an ascent of 500m! After fortifying ourselves at the convenience store (conveniently located right at the turnoff!) we made good progress up the hill on a very well maintained hiking trail. It had numerous benches to rest on, which we didn’t use as it’s usually best to rest when you get to the top!
The trail down was not as steep, fortunately, but neither was it as well maintained. Once we left the forest we were in the thick of the next phase of the motorway construction, with all sorts of machines carving through ridges, building causeways and erecting concrete (what else would be used in Japan) foundations for overbridges. Some of the work site looked like it haf been originally done a few years ago, so maybe they various levels of government found room in the most recent budget. The new motorway seems a somewhat unnecessary expense for a sparsely populated region, but perhaps the mega road serves more than one purpose, such as more effective response to natural disasters
Tonight we are in a budget hotel, as other accommodations were not available (maybe being used by construction crews!) What the hotel lacks, the brand new, luxurious onsen made up for, so we enjoyed all the facilities and then had dinner in the restaurant. It is run like a cafeteria, with electronic ordering, collect your tray from the kitchen when the order is ready, and clean up afterwards, but the food was superb, and very affordable!
