42km of Route 265 was more than enough for me. It went up a lot, down a lot and then repeated it in the afternoon. I saw two snakes, I think the second was dead, and hardly spoke to anyone. The road was very quiet, maybe a dozen cars all day. The highlight came right [...]

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From a very cold night it didn’t take long to become a stiflingly hot day. Hardly a cloud in the sky from the moment I left my nice site by the lake. I put it to good use, getting to Kobayashi by midday to restock before getting on Route 265 were I’ll be for a [...]

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Spring has sprung, the sun has risen and like Christopher, I’m Walken. It didn’t rain last night so I’m glad to have saved ¥3000. The sun was on my tent before I wanted to get up, I’m still not sleeping through the night though the therma-rest is comfy enough I just massively over heat. Leaving [...]

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I think I knocked out a marathon today. Without a data book it’s hard to tell but around 10 hours on my feet should have done it. And I don’t feel too bad. I do however reek, so my apologies go to the staff at Miyakanojo Ward Office where I sought help locating a much [...]

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A wise man once said “Some days are diamonds, some days are stone”. Somedays start off as stone and get worse and worse until a diamond pops out and that lands me here at Ground Golf just off route 67.
I stayed in my tent until 8am, which by hiking standards is sleeping in. The rain [...]

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It was the kind of day when you could get sunburned without knowing. The clouds blocked out enough sun to dampen shadows so I couldn’t navigate from them but my solar chargers were glowing so unless I wanted my ears to too I would need a hat.
I sat on the deck for a while, waiting [...]

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It turns out the tunnel I was camped in the mouth of was the path to the cape. I found this out at about 5am when a fisherman came to climb the fence to reach his favourite spot. I had already climbed over to avoid the rain that was blowing in but not ventured much [...]

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At 8:38 precisely the Nozomi (a very strange name for a very fast train) rolled out of Hiroshima and I was on the way to Cape Sata. Behind me I left Lorraine to make her own way to Tokyo. She should be fine because despite how confusing everything seems to outsiders everyone is here to [...]

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Everyone knows about the horrors of Hiroshima but you can’t say you really understand it until you’ve been here and even then you’re unlikely to grasp the true horror that brought this city to the world’s attention at 8:15am on August 6th 1945. I walked through the Peace Park and read every display in the [...]

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Japan has three “famous views” of which it is rightly proud. Today we visited Miyajima, an island south of Hiroshima, home to the Isukushima shrine and its floating torii. The torii isn’t actually floating, but when the tide comes in it stands in a couple of meters of water in a small bay and becomes [...]

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