Today’s walk is the longest in the set of walks on our itinerary. 22 kms from O-Tsumago to Nojiri.
Our first ryokan breakfast - extensive and an unusual mix of flavours, particularly for first thing in the morning
We set off at 8.30 with the temperature nearly at its maximum of 34oC.
For the first few kilometres we wandered through small towns
Shrines along the way
More natural wonders
Lush scenery
Senior citizens out in force cleaning shrines, weeding highways, clearing drains. Note the silver circular box on the lady’s belt - it had a smoking mosquito coil inside.
Mark’s knees weathered the ups and downs well today but the heat took its toll.
Fortunately there was no lack of water, so he could douse himself regularly and stay hydrated. Amazing amount of (working) vending machines with cold drinks as well.
Mark needed lots of rests so we missed our 3pm train. Fortunately there was another at 5.30pm from the little unstaffed station in Nojiri. By this time, Mark had fully recovered.
We had been provided with tickets and although the schedule was in Japanese we worked out that our train would leave from platform 2. Meanwhile in downtown Nojiri, the fire trucks all started parading near the station and many residents flocked to the station with white hard hats - a town fire drill. Lots of acitivity to keep us entertained.
We arrived in Kiso-Fukushima after 6 pm and to our great surprise and relief, a bus from our ryokan was waiting for us, to drive us the 10 minutes to our very salubrious ryokan hotel. Our room is a suite. Dinner was endless. In fact, we had to tell the attentive host that we’d reached our limit.
Our robes or yukatas are blue for boys and green for girls
One of the staff is a keen astronomer and takes groups out on clear nights. Last night we saw Jupiter (and its stripes), Saturn (and its rings) and close ups of the moon’s craters. He had large telescopes and an iPad app to distinguish stars and constellations.
M&M
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