Day 100: Uchiyama to Ume
Hours walked: 7:00-1:30
Distance walked: 20 km
Cumulative: 2,200 km
Last night was a restless one; Jakob was woken at 9:30 pm by shrill screeches in the woods surrounding us. Monkeys? Raccoon dogs? Deer? Regardless, 9:30 is not the time you want to get woken at, and Jakob lay awake listening to the beasts until 1:30 am when they finally calmed down.
We always pack up early when we stealth camp, and today was no exception. We hit the road at 7, grateful to have encountered no-one besides a woman walking her tiny dog. After a super-steep climb to the road, we marched along enjoying the mountain views of rural Kyushu.
We only had two stop points today: a grocery store midway and a rest stop at our endpoint. So when we walked up to a completely shut market at 11, our hearts sank. Lunch was suddenly our emergency stash of mixed nuts - and dinner was in jeopardy! Fortunately, we found a cute (if overpriced) vegetable stand at the rest stop, and blew $40 on veggies, eggs and baked goods.
It had started to drizzle in our last hour of walking, and the rain picked up as we reached the rest stop. By extremely, beautifully good fortune, our “cabin” tonight is more like a cottage, complete with heater, bedding, shower and kitchenette. So we spent the whole afternoon mooching cozily around while the rain hammered down in the gloom outside.
Our improvised dinner of daikon, sweet potato and spicy green onion in peanut sauce was surprisingly good; Levana has barfed three times, though, and was generally a basket case ever since her woefully short nap. She has no fever, but is clearly out of sorts. Now it’s 7:30 and we are all watching Levi be sick and dramatic together - might be a long night, but so much better than if this were happening in a dark, leaky tent.
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| Walking past these beaches almost hurts |
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| Having a ball outside the 7-11 |
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| Tova cozied up in her new sweater and hat |
Day 101: Ume to Nobeoka
Hours walked: 7:15-4:30
Distance walked: 31 km
Cumulative: 2,231 km
Levi woke up with a fever: snot bubbled from her nose, her eyes were shiny and glazed, her cheeks were red. At least her stomach had settled, though, so we decided to walk and see how it went.
As it turned out, sick babies are pretty easy to hike with! Levana slept and zoned out most of the day in her stroller. Sophia did an IGCSE maths exam as we walked along, Tova found like four treasures (a kanji character, a panda, a Grand Canyon bottle opener, etc.) Aurora and Tamar talked plans. Zadie read Cam Jansen out loud with Jakob and did fractions.
We walked through some awfully lovely country today. Our road followed the Kitagawa River, which is a shimmering green with wonderfully clear waters. Tree plantations rise up on gentle mountains in perfectly even rows of pines. Every small lake we passed had a family of ducks ready to explode into flight as we arrived. A truck driver stopped to give us no less than *nine* beverages: 5 Aquarius, 2 large coffees and 2 spring waters.
We reached a supermarket after 16 smooth kilometers, where we met Jorge from Valladolid, a hiker who is going Soya-to-Sata just like us! He hikes quite a bit faster as a solo walker, and we had a great time comparing impressions of the different islands. We saw him again an hour later at a rest stop where tried the local soft serve specialty (a sharp citrus, quite good.)
Then it was back to walking a few more hours. Levi’s forehead was still warm but she seemed content to just veg out in the stroller. The APA Hotel made a medium-sized fuss about our family size, but we held firm (having called them two days ago to confirm everything). We munched on sushi, pizza and pb sandwiches, feeling good about a long, pretty day of walking.
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| End-of-day wind-down |
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| What a nice spot for a bathroom break! |
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| Gorgeous forests of Kyushu |
Day 102: Nobeoka to Hyuga
Hours walked: 7:15-3:30
Distance walked: 27 km
Cumulative: 2,258 km
Today Levi discovered she can reach under her stroller and cause all kind of trouble. She leaned waaaay out to one side, pulled out a bag of snacks, and threw it under the wheels. A bag of Marie biscuits burst like an artillery shell. Her blankie got rolled over again and again. She’s totally unapologetic and looks like a kid who’s starting to test our limits.
We stopped for lunch at a large playground. It’s so much nicer to eat at a picnic table while Levi runs around in the sand, rather than sitting in the convenience store parking lot. Then we kept walking along reasonably quiet coastal roads, getting honked at by friendly truck drivers.
The girls had an absolute blast once we reached Pumping Surf hostel. Tova grabbed a surfboard and hit the waves until it got too dark to see. Levi romped around on a car, train, hammock and slide. Jakob cooked up a rather nice tofu vegetable fry with somen. The deserted skateboarding bowl turned into a playland for four joyous girls - Zadie and Tova begged an extra 10 minutes of play past their usual bedtime. It was a fun day.
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| Surf’s up! |
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| Seaside tinkertoys |
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| Babies win on both smoothness and proportions |
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