Okinawa: Hiking

For our last full day in Okinawa we headed off to "the biggest waterfall in Okinawa" which, since Okinawa is not a very large area, is unsurprisingly less than heroically proportioned.  It was, however, a nice walk into into the woods to get there, and the pictures are available on Flickr.

First though, we had to take a bus up onto Cape Hedo, which is the northern point of Okinawa, get off at what appeared on the map to be one of the last towns worthy of the the name, and walk a mile or two inland on roads to find the trailhead.  The trailhead featured a fairly large campsite, several buildings, and an unexpected ~$6 entry fee each.  After seeing the trail they're maintaining with that money, my complaints about the fee evaporated.

It even has a railing, for crying out loud.

Large portions of the trail were on raised walkways, and the trail must be more than two miles long.  That's a lot of walkway through the woods to build.

We encountered some ferocious and exotic wildlife.

As you can see, we went heavily equipped on this trying and dangerous expedition.

The trail mostly followed the river up the valley to the waterfall, crossing it once.

The easy trail did have some rather nice surroundings.

The fact that this ruin was placed on the trail map may tell you something about how many items of interest beside the scenery the trail possessed.

Not the main waterfall.

The waterfall does have a nice little lagoon.  I can see why there were so many signs that said no diving / swimming / climbing, because were it hot summer it would have been most tempting.  There was even a separate sign posted for US servicemembers on Okinawa, saying basically 'The other signs apply to YOU, jarhead. Command is sick of losing personnel, however stupid, to accidents at this site'.

We ate the lunch we'd brought with us at this little hut on the way back.

I thought the ginormous fern trees were interesting.  Seem prehistoric in style and scale, some of them had giant fiddleheads at the top.  There were quite a few of them on some sections of the trail.

A hawk or eagle let me get my lens changed about 85% to the big telephoto before flying away.  I left it on and vengefully photographed other birds on the walk back out to the town.

OK this one was pretty easy to capture. The local area's tourist mascot bird is a quail-like thing called the yonbaru and this is supposed to be one of those. They're endangered, so the conservation center is a main tourist attraction here too. Why it is lifting weights, I do not know.

Not a yonbaru.

The local bus / rest stop had a restaurant serving dishes with meat from locally-grown boar / pig hybrids they were cleverly calling inobuta, which I'm 99% sure is the equivalent of "boarpig".  That was interesting enough to get our attention and we had a second lunch / early dinner there.

The meals turned out to be pretty good for the price and location, and I've certainly had pork that was less flavorful and less tender.  I don't think you'll be seeing Okinawan inobuta in your local stores anytime soon, though, as I get the feeling that they sell it in about a two-mile radius of where it is produced.  That dinner and the subsequent bus trip back to the campsite pretty much wrapped up our six-day stay on Okinawa - the days that our blogging hasn't accounted for were largely spent lounging around reading and taking leisurely naps.  

Waiting for the bus to the bus to the plane to the subway to the other subway to Tokyo.

I'd left my razor with the electronics in storage at the airport - was quite scruffy by this point.  We were headed to Tokyo to meet up with two of Ana's sisters, who would be visiting Japan and us for a few weeks, which is where the blogging will continue soon.