Day 29-31: Green Pia to Kamaishi

 Day 29: Green Pia to Miyako

Hours walked: 8:00 to 4:00

Distance walked: 28 km

Cumulative: 588 km 

Quote of the day: “What is a fern bush with a cherry tomato made of? Licorice!” - Tova, this was a riddle by the way. 

Finally a normal day of walking! The forecast was direly gray, but we ended up with very reasonable rain on and off. 

Jakob found the Green Pia beds quite hard - it’s like you’re on the floor on a badly understaffed mattresses. And then the pillows are weird bean bags, full of little rustling beads or pearled barley or something. Tamar thought it was quite comfortable since she is usually on a single Z-rest with a baby  

Breakfast at the hotel was a nice start - there were no English labels, so we struggled a bit to tell what things were. Aurora got too much rice and has sworn off it for breakfast. This meal was fancier than the last breakfast, yet we didn’t like it as much. Bread rolls matter a lot to our family, it turns out. 

The walking was very smooth -maybe because we’ve had lots of rest, or because the three heavy backpacks were stored at Miyako station. Everyone was happy to be walking again. 

There wasn’t much sign of damage from the storm, though the rivers are swollen and fast-flowing, and all the reeds along the riverbanks are flattened and sodden. One guy stopped and gave us popsicles during a particularly hot stretch, which was lovely. We also came across a vegetable stand with the cheapest produce we’ve ever seen - Zadie was thrilled. 

Miyako Route Inn is definitely older than its sibling in Yahaba; spending $400 for two tired twin rooms felt steep but we didn’t have much choice given the weather conditions. We had a good evening though, visiting yet another onsen, reading books and eating a light dinner of onigiri, soft-boiled eggs, and nasty gelatinous soba noodles. 

Zadie scores her favourite food

Levi sprawls outside the convenience store

Social hour on the sidewalk 

Day 30: Miyako to Yamada

Hours walked: 7:30 to 4:15

Distance walked: 25 km

Cumulative: 613 km

“My brain is like a sponge that is constantly being wrung out” - Tamar

We got up very early and headed down to breakfast just after 6. Tova and Aurora got into a spat about how yuzu jam should be given, and Tova sulked much of the morning. 

It was super hot - we bought Aquarius and ice cream every chance we got; under that blazing sun, we could carry frozen-solid drinks and steadily drink them as we walked and they melted. Levi still won’t wear a hat so we took turns protecting her with the umbrella.  

Our road often has a sidewalk, which makes for easy walking; but when it vanishes, it can feel pretty scary. The cars came whizzing around corners and our shoulder was less than two feet wide in one stretch. Hilly country is more picturesque but we notice that the sidewalks always disappear in the hills which is exactly where the road gets most curvy. 

Anyway, we made it to Yamada, where a chin up bar and playground lifted our spirits again. Tova did gymnastics on uneven bars, Zadie did a “ginormous swing”, and Sophia did a 15-10-5 of pull-ups. Tova confided in Aurora that, the night before, she had played tag with another young girl in the onsen - DEFINITELY not the done thing! “But that girl wanted to play tag with me and what was I supposed to do?!”

Tamar took some kids to the whale museum, then we stealth-camped in a lovely field with a 24-hour bathroom and one other family sleeping in a camper van. Dinner was the stock-standard miso udon tofu daikon. The night was hot and calm as we fell asleep.  

Pretty nice site!

The bays in this region are especially beautiful 

Cooling off partway through the hike

Day 31: Yamada to Kamaishi 

Hours walked: 6:40 to 3:30

Distance walked: 33 km

Cumulative: 646 km

Stealth camping went well; we got up at 5:15 but didn’t feel like we were in anyone’s way at all. It was perfect walking weather: hot and humid but also overcast. The first convenience store was 7 km away, so we ate some granola and set out. 

The first town we hit, charmingly named Kirikiri, turned out to have a gorgeous beach right nearby so Sophia Tova and Zadie all went for a half-hour dip. The beach was soft white sand, and the water even had a floating slide a short swim offshore!

Tova’s mood was volatile again today; she had a headache, melted down a bit at breakfast and sulked for much of the morning. The vibes were made worse by the roads: the 45 highway has gotten busier and the shoulder is pretty miserable sometimes. In one long tunnel with cars whizzing by, a police car flashed its lights at us.

We decided to take side roads in the afternoon, accepting extra kilometres in exchange for quieter roads. Our 24 km turned into 33 km, but everyone felt better on the coastal 231 road. We saw rocky islands jutting out of the sea, quite lovely. A car passed every few minutes instead of every few seconds - so much better! 

Zadie played many rounds of “how would you rather die” with Jakob, laughing hysterically at the hideous dilemmas she came up with. Would you rather be hugged by a bear “until you pop like a balloon” or tickled to death by three angels ages 3, 5 and 7, but you do get to see angels  right before you die? We have some weird conversations. 

We split up for the last few kilometers. Jakob and Aurora had a mellow time pushing the stroller along a deserted hill road, the highlight being a long pitch-black tunnel to walk through. The others…not so smooth. The trail was in poor condition after the typhoon, and hard to find. It rained hard as they bushwhacked up steep slopes in search of the trail. Apart from the 15 to 20(!) snakes they encountered, Zadie also ran into a colony of paper wasps, which gave her one sting, and Sophia three. Levi fortunately didn’t get any stings as she howled on Tamar’s back in the rain. 

They made it down before dark, with Sophia reacting quite a lot to the stings (lots of hives, sort of a fitting word). Jakob’s pharmacy run was fruitless as Japan won’t sell epipens over the counter, so he and Sophia went out in the downpour to visit the nearby hospital. It was closed, Sophia grew quite faint and her vision started to go. A woman helped us call an ambulance, Sophia recovered somewhat in the 5 minutes it took to arrive (not bad!) and the next four hours were our first introduction to the Japanese healthcare system. 

Everyone was very respectful and positive. They checked Sophia’s vital signs about a hundred times before eventually giving her an IV antihistamine drip. It of course worked wonders, and 40 minutes later she looked way better. We eventually got a taxi home, ate a few peanuts instead of dinner, and called it the end of a very very long day. 

Levi waking up from a nap

Sophia being a tough cookie in the Kamaishi Prefecture Hospital

The adventurers set out on the toughest trail we’ve yet encountered