Getting an early start seems to be one of the keys to a successful day. So 6.50am found me shivering on the platform at Shizuoka station, trying to surreptitiously eat an egg sandwich from purchased from a nearby konbini and drink a hot vending machine coffee while waiting for the train back to Shimizu.
By 7.30 I was back on the Old Tokaido. It was a clear, bright and chilly morning – great for walking – but little of interest to note in the first few kilometres. Crossing the Tomoe River, the four corners of the bridge were adorned with statues of Kappa – a sort of traditional water sprite – in various poses.
At one point, checking the traffic to cross the road, I glanced behind me and realised there was another stunning view of Mount Fuji. And since you can never have enough of them:
A bridge took me across a wide complex of half a dozen rail tracks. Within 15 seconds, three very different trains passed underneath: first, a Shinkansen blasted through in the blink of an eye; then a mainline Tokaido set headed in the same direction at a much more sedate but still respectable speed; and finally a brightly liveried two-car local on the Shizuoka–Shimizu line. The brilliance of Japanese transit in microcosm.
Into the back streets of central Shizuoka, where a bottle shop had adopted an eye-catching approach to street signage:
As the Old Tokaido approaches Sumpu castle in the centre of Shizuoka, it zigzags left and right every block or two. I’ve read that this is a classic street pattern for castle towns on the OT, as it was designed to make them easier to defend and harder to attack.
The route actually passes within a block of two of my hotel, and I found myself on streets I’d walked the previous evening while out for a stroll. I like Shizuoka. It has the feel and buzz of a big city, but without the only just restrained frenzy of Tokyo. There seem to be lots of interesting little shops and eateries in those narrow back streets.
Heading into the western outskirts of the city, I take advantage of a tiny triangle of park with a couple of benches to rest my legs and use the convenience. Public toilets in Japan are astonishingly clean and well maintained compared to those in Australia … but they’re also – well – surprisingly public. Helps the ventilation, I suppose…
I reached the long bridge across the Abe River, where a boys’ soccer game was taking place on a dirt pitch that made the ball super bouncy.
It was good to do a big river crossing in daylight, as until now they’ve all been at dusk or later.
On the far side, yet another amazing view of Fuji:
Climbing gently into the hills on the far side of the river, a stall outside a modest house was selling bags of five mandarins for 100 yen (about a dollar):
A patch of clear ground by the river and a couple of benches offered the perfect spot to sample one or two. As I started peeling, an old man got off his pushbike and sat down a few metres away on an upwind bench. We nodded in convivial greeting … just before he took out a packet of cigarettes and lit up. The breeze blew a face-full of smoke over me just as I bit into the first segment. I finished the rest of that mandarin as quickly as possible and moved on.
Soon I reached the famous tea house at Mariko, where I’d originally intended to stop for the day. In Hiroshige’s time this establishment was famous for its yam soup, and they still sell the stuff today. This being Sunday, the place was busy, and I didn’t stop to sample.
Of course there’s a reproduction of the relevant Hiroshige print right outside:
It was early afternoon and I was feeling pretty good, so I decided to press on. I’m pretty sure I’m going to need a rest every fifth day, and as my original itinerary had me walking for five consecutive days on this leg, I figure every little bit extra I can do each day will give me a better chance of meeting my schedule of arriving in Kyoto on 7th December.
A little further up the valley I had my first confirmed sighting of a love hotel! It’s amazing that I’ve been in Japan for two weeks and this is the first I’ve seen – or at least the first that’s registered as such. Note the curtains that can be drawn in front of parked cars for extra discretion.
Just around the corner was an even more garish example of the genre:
From the earthly to the sublime: this Buddha (or Boddhisatva?), photographed from a pedestrian overpass, loomed over and watched over a busy highway heading up the valley:
There are, apparently, four tunnels through the mountain here, of various ages (although I could only see three on the maps). This is the entrance to the most modern, which carries the highway:
Just before the tunnel mouth, the old road peels off to the right and up through a small but absolutely charming village…
… to one of the older tunnels. The signage is really confusing here, and I’m still not sure if I took the Meiji tunnel (named after the era of its construction) or the other one. Whichever it was, it was dimly lit and pretty spooky, with no footpath as such. Update: I've since learned I took the 'other', slightly more modern tunnel. I should have turned left on exiting the village, rather than right.
Once again, I was glad of the front and back lights of my head torch, although in the event no cars passed through in the few minutes it took me to reach that blob of light at the far end.
Once through, the road wound gently down to the next post town, Okabe, where I decided to call it a day and catch a bus back to Shizuoka.
Quite a lot of ground covered today, and exhaustion level relatively mild. I’m feeling a lot more optimistic about completing the trek in something resembling the original timeframe than I did half a dozen days ago.
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