Day six

This morning, I managed to miss the express train to my destination by a few minutes. (Well, I technically made it, but I wasn’t aware it was reserved seats only, and I hadn’t reserved a seat).

One hour later, I took the express train to Bitchu Matsuyama, where I planned a hike to a viewing spot of a local castle.

When the conditions are right, it’s supposed to show the castle floating in the clouds.

However, the conditions weren’t right, so I altered my plans slightly and visited the castle instead.

There were hardly any people there, and I had the castle all to myself.

From here on, I took a trail across the mountain ridge and eventually ended up on a suspension bridge in the middle of nowhere.

From here, the trail became a lot more interesting in that the well-marked path became a game of “scavenger hunt.” I had to follow sparsely placed ribbons through vegetation and hillsides without any marked path whatsoever.

It was quite fun, but it wasn’t easy.

After about two hours of mucking around in the woods, I made it to the end. It had started raining by then, but not that much, luckily.

At the tourist office at the end of the trail, a few locals were very excited to see someone and were impressed I managed to finish the trail.

That evening, I had delicious Okonomiyaki at a local place run by an older woman. It had one table and three seats at the bar. Unsurprisingly, the pancake was amazing.

That evening, I had a choice to make; when booking hotels, I left tomorrow’s date open so I could figure out what to do between here and Fukuoka. Make a stop in Hiroshima, for example. Or stay in another small coastal town.

But looking at the weather, it seemed there was a Typhoon coming, which could mean lots of rain, so I added a day to my Fukuoka hotel instead so I could at least do a few hikes there while it was still dry.