Michinoku Coastal Trail (みちのく潮風トレイル) NOBO : Day 23

Day 23 of MCT (Michinoku Coastal Trail)
See-ya Miyagi. Hello Iwate.
We checked out the youth hostel earlier than we usually start walking, to cover as many kilometers as possible before rainfall starts and we have to wear raingears. We wanted to walk through at least the nature trail part, about 5 km, we originally planned to cover but could not yesterday. The wind was already much stronger than yesterday and the sky was totally covered with thick gray clouds. Though we felt very light mists in the blowing wind, but it was not enough to make us wet.
We dropped by the vending machine at the neighborhood grocery store to get morning hot drinks (coffee for me and milk tea for Erik) and walked back to the point we left from the MCT route yesterday. The first part of the nature trail was going through woods and relatively flat, so we could walk pretty fast. Then, we came out to a pebble beach. Here, we could choose either go on the regular route, which was running on the beach, or the detour route running higher forests to prevent being swept away in case of high tide or waves. We looked at the harder waves thumping the beach. But even the hardest of them could cover only half of the beach, thanks to the lower tide time, and there were plenty of spaces on the beach that were kept dry for us to walk safely. So, we took the beach route.
After going through the beach trail part, the route went up to the top of hill. When we were standing a nice flat view point to look back the pebble beach and forests we just walked though, a local grand-pa showed up from somewhere as if he just popped out from the air. He carried a big old-fashion binocular. We exchanged regular chit-chat with him, but he spoke with very thick local accents so I didn’t catch almost half of what he was saying. He told us that many of the pine trees in the forests we came from this morning got infected with contagious disease or insects and died. That’s why they were cut and even other infected but still alive ones need to be cut to prevent any more spread of the disease. He then suddenly sat down near the edge of the view point and watching something with the binocular. We guessed he was checking the small ships on the beach if they were strongly tied and not get washed away.
The last part of the nature trail was running by two small capes, Ogama and Hanzo, which covers with the weird looking cliffs and giant rocks. They seemed the most popular nature tourist attraction in this area, because many small information board stood in front of especially huge, bit or weird looking locks. MCT route was not exactly going around near the points we could see those rocks, so we took time there to walk around for enjoying each of the significant rocks.
Actually, this was our original goal point for yesterday and we were glad we didn’t try to reach here yesterday, as it was quite a distance to get here from the actual point we finished yesterday, much farer than I thought, and I would’ve been so sad if we had to run in the dark and could not have time to enjoy the scenic.
After the rock cliff park, the rest of today’s route was going to be all on driveways. While we were walking fast through the quiet villages, misty rain was gradually getting harder and harder. We didn’t pull out our rain gears from our backpacks yet to walk faster to get to the first convenience store for today. The store was located at the neck of Karakuwa peninsula. We finally got our breakfast and the most-wanted and most-useful item for today, umbrella. Through we had really hoped the convenience store had seating area for us to enjoy breakfast in a warm and dry environment, there was really no extra space in the store. We walked around a bit to look for any resting hut with big roof. The only thing we could find was a random bathroom that had a space barely enough for us to sit down under the roof. We sat down directly on the concrete floor in front of the 3 doors of bathrooms and ate our breakfast. At least we had warm sandwiches and pork buns to re-gain energy.
Under the great protection of umbrella, we walked along the driveway which was literally the only major driveway for the people living in the area. Thankfully, the road had wide sidewalk and the wind was so modest that we could keep the umbrella straight up without effort. Actually, I was pretty enjoying walking here through the rain. Walking this driveway running between small villages, foggy mountains, and some farms really made me feel like I was walking on Shikoku pilgrimage. My clothes and shoes were a bit wet and they didn’t get dry in this cold rainy weather. Then, so randomly, we found a small laundromat at a roadside. Actually, it was not exactly laundromat because there were only driers, no washing machines, set in it. There were even vending machines next to the random driers. I really wished we didn’t still have long way to go for today and had time to dry our cloths to refresh.
There was only very short natural trail along this driveway route. From a beautiful beach with colorful rocks called “marble beach” for some hundred meters, we walked through a forest and then, the route got back to the major driveway and passed Krakuwaosawa station. From here, the nightmare started.
Now this major driveway was running along the coastline. This road was literally only one way to pass through this part with mountain slops on its left side and cliffs on its right side. For some reason, the local authority who designed this road seemed to think there was no need of sidewalks here. So, we found ourselves walking at the edge of pretty busy driveway with all cars passed by right next to our shoulders in quite high speed. Obviously, both the old road designers and current local drivers didn’t expect anyone would need to be WALKING on this road.
To avoid getting hit by car, especially when we held umbrellas, we tried to keep walking as edge as possible. As you know, the edges of a road are usually a bit lower than the center line to keep water from the driving lanes. Now, it was functioning very well as it was intended, and resulted in pretty good water stream running down at the edge, exactly where we had to walk.
We were about to cross the prefectural boarder between Miyagi and Iwate and I had been so looking forward to it. But now, we both became silent and just kept walking in the water stream in hope that it just ended as quickly as possible. “We have walked a lot of terrible driveways on MCT but this is the WORST ever,” Erik said. “Seriously, I hate this road the most.”
Finally, we saw the prefectural border sign ahead of us. I was so excited. Before we started walking on MCT, we knew the majority opinion agreed the south part of MCT is not as interesting and impressive than the north part. That was the reason why we took north-bound route to finish more boring part first, not ending our 1000+km walk with boring driveways days. Sadly, our low expectations for south part had been confirmed with several experiences of our own. To be honest, I had been counting how many days until crossing the border and entering Iwate.
After crossing the border, of course it was not like everything suddenly changed and we were walking in the dream world. We still had to keep walking a bit on sidewalk-less busy driveway. Then, MCT route brunched out from the major driveway and we started walking completely quiet one-lane road through seaside villages.
We were now Rikuzentakata city of Iwate, heading to the main part of the city. I remembered the name of this city as one of the hardest hit places by the earthquake and Tunami. The city center used to be busy flat area with beautiful pine tree forests lining along the long long beach. We arrived at the big bridge to enter the disaster-stricken city center. It was still huge open space since the city moved all residents houses and city lifelines on higher areas. We saw a tall pine tree standing in the open area near the destroyed building. This pine tree became famous as a symbol of hope to rebuild for the survived residents of the city, because it was the only one tree of the huge pine forests that survived and kept standing in the middle of the tunami.
The pine tree was called “miracle pine tree,” but the story of the tree got some weird twist later. Sadly, the miracle pine tree could not survive for long in the salty soils and died. (There are lots of dead legendary “immortal” trees at temples and shrines all over Japan. Apparently their miracle power of everlasting life could was weaker than some infectious disease or insects.) And the city decided to make a plastic replica of the tree and stood it where the real pine used to stand. This city’s decision was quite controversial and still is among both city residents (mostly on how the tax money was used) and visitors (mainly on if it is still valuable to visit to see the replica pine tree or not.)
We arrived at the Michino-eki and the earthquake and disaster museum. Before we visited the museum, we took some rest at a coffee shop in Mishino-eki and enjoyed good soft-creams. Mine was a cup of soft-cream on coffee jerries. The museum looked pretty new and very clean. Some displays were interesting but the short film here was not as good as we saw at the destroyed high-school turned earthquake museum in Kesenuma city. Around this museum, the city kept some destroyed buildings as the disaster monuments.
We had only short walk along the newly build wide driveway to today’s inn. The rain had stopped when we came near the city center and now cold wind was blowing. A part of former city center now open space was turned a big sports park. Along the sea line, local people used to be very proud of the beautiful historical long pine tree forests, but now, we only see a big tall long seawall concealing the seawater from us. We passed a destroyed former apartment building. Only top floor kept nearly perfect condition and rest of lower floors were totally empty without all windows and balconies were gone, showing how high the Tunami water came. We crossed the former city-center open area and stopped by a convenience store located at the other side to get our dinner for tonight. Our accommodation was right up from there. The rain was over, now we are in Iwate.