Tokaido Day 7 – Wednesday, 15th November: Hakone Checkpoint to Numazu (26 km)

Didn’t get back to my hotel until 7pm this evening, so tonight’s post will be short on words and consist mostly of pictures.

In brief: caught the Shinkansen back to Odawara, thence bus to Hakone Checkpoint (shadowing the route I’d walked yesterday) and picked up the trail.

Alongside Lake Ashi is one of the prettiest stretches of the Old Tokaido so far:

Although the ‘top’ I’d reached yesterday certainly felt like a peak, there’s actually a bit more climbing beyond the lake until you reach the ‘official’ Hakone Pass, where the new road crosses (this was looking back into Kanagawa Prefecture, where I’d just come from):

And then it was downhill all the way to Mishima – a long, long way down, some of it steep and some of those sections on the dreaded ishidatami. But where the track surface was good, it was very pleasant going indeed.

In places where the road surface had been restored, it looked as it must have done when originally constructed:

Past the site of a long-vanished castle:

… and the very modern Dragon’s Castle (a massive kids’ adventure playground):

Throughout the day, I kept getting views or glimpses of Mount Fuji:

… and views down to the coast:

A group of Jizo watch over travellers:

At the outskirts of Mishima I stopped at the very beautiful Mishima-taisha Shrine:

Mishima, with its Shinkansen station, was one stopping option, but by now the OT was flat and I felt pretty good, so I pushed on into the sunset to my original destination of Numazu.

(I didn’t see the boy sitting at the bus stop until I walked past him. He was engrossed in his phone and I don’t think he even registered my existence.)

Dusk afforded a final glimpse for the day of Fujisan, sandwiched between an apartment block and a pachinko/slots (gaming) venue the size of an Australian RSL club. Perfect.

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Tokaido prologue

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