Day 35: Nagoya and the valley of dark shadows
Today I have reached the outskirts of Nagoya, but not before a slightly harrowing end to the days walk.
I looked forward to the walk today as it was predominatelt set in rural area, moving through the green belt that divides Kyoto from Nagoya, and I was not disappointed.
I was treated to a walk down an old country road, through calm and cool forests chirping and bustling with the sounds of so many insects and birds.
I enjoyed the small vistas of rice fields and quiet farming villages. Each person that I would pass on foot would greet me with a smile and a 'Konnichiwa'.
The route today was a comfortable 15km, and I had no concerns about my ability to cover the ground. But due to a mixup and a missed train out to the section, I found myself starting far later in the day than planned.
I have come to realize that while it has been cost effective to section the route up and use the train to jump back to my hostel each evening, it is no longer time effective. This has become very clear to me as my return trip home by train now takes two hours.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
As I reached the 10km mark on my route the sun was getting low in the sky and I had a decision to make; catch the train here or push through the last ~5km to the next station.
Feeling that I had a good 45 minutes of sunset/dusk before it got proper dark, and I was probably only an hour from the end, I picked up the pace and moved forward.
The thing about walking through a deep, winding river valley is that even though the sun hasn't set, the light gets ate up by the hills looming on all sides.
Before I knew it the sun was blanked out and I was swimming in dark shadows. The sky remained bright, but everything below it quickly fell dark far sooner than I had anticipated. I was two kilometres in and did not want to turn back being so close to halfway there.
Stopping to get water from my bag I also dug out my headlamp, an item I had only decided to bring to Japan at the last moment, on the urging of a loved one, and in that moment I was extremely glad to have listened to them.
Donning my trusty headlamp my way forward sprung up once again, with the lines on the road and retro reflectors that flanked it glowing from my new light.
These glowing reflectors made for welcome guides as the light faded, but soon also became eerie glowing reminders of how little else I could see.
The light also gave comfort as it allowed me to signal my presence to the occasional car that would pass me on this narrow road long before they were upon me. A concern that had grown as the light died away.
It's funny how so many sounds in the day mean very little to you, hardly noticed, but once the light had completely gone and my eyes were starved, my ears feasted on the many noises from the forest towering around me, and my imagination had a field day.
A deep, low sound rose up from the forest on my left. The sounds of the rushing river immediately to my right made it impossible to place it's distance or origin, but the low sound was unmistakeably unpleasant. Was it a distance plane? Industrial equipment in the next valley? Or a growling animal just beyond the treeline muffled by the river?
My pace quickened as my ears were unable to make sense of what I was hearing, and I left the sound behind. Before long I came to a mountain tunnel, a few hundred metres long, and foreboding as I approached.
As I entered the sound of the forest and river dropped away almost immediately, and I was left with only the sound of my footsteps reverberating back at me from the walls of the passageway.
I am not one to suffer from claustrophobia, but in that near complete darkness, devoid of any background noise, that mountain tunnel felt far smaller to me than it really was.
Moving quickly through the tunnel, my mind shifted it's focus from being accosted by uneen forest creatures and looked instead to the real possibility of getting caught by a car entering the tunnel in front of me.
I hurried to the mouth of the tunnel, and just as I breathed a sigh of relief to find no oncoming traffic, a loud and chaotic noise eruoted directly overhead at the tunnel's exit.
Already on edge, this unexpected noise spooked me. My fight or flight instincts took over and I broke into a sprint, worried that something large was about to fall on me from above.
This fear wasn't unwarranted, throughout the valley there was warning signs calling out the danger of falling rocks, and an hour earlier I had passed an old landslide that had come down the valley next to the road.
Only a few steps into my sprint I became aware of the source of the noise as a cluster of birds flew overhead. They were as spooked by my sudden appearance at the exit of the tunnel as I was by their clatter.
I stopped and laughed in relief. Setting I my bag down on the side of the road I took a drink from my water bottle and checked my GPS. I was just a little ways from the main road, and from there a kilometer from my train station finish line.
The rest of the walk was down a road populated by large trucks, heavy with cargo. But their constant presence, and the numerous lights they are festooned with, brought a certain comfort where I would have normally cursed sharing a route with them.
I am now sitting in Kyoto station eating dinner and counting my gray hairs to see how many new ones I have collected today.
This will be the last walk I take from Kyoto, my progress now outstrips the value of taking the train to continue. I will take the rest of my time here to enjoy Kyoto before relocating to Nagoya and picking up where I left off.
The experiment of section hiking the route between Kyoto to Nagoya was an interesting one, and within shorter distances it may have continued value to my adventure. But I don't think that I will replicate the process over such large distances.
I will probably also make more conservative decisions when it comes to pushing past sunset out in rural areas.
I looked forward to the walk today as it was predominatelt set in rural area, moving through the green belt that divides Kyoto from Nagoya, and I was not disappointed.
I was treated to a walk down an old country road, through calm and cool forests chirping and bustling with the sounds of so many insects and birds.
The route today was a comfortable 15km, and I had no concerns about my ability to cover the ground. But due to a mixup and a missed train out to the section, I found myself starting far later in the day than planned.
I have come to realize that while it has been cost effective to section the route up and use the train to jump back to my hostel each evening, it is no longer time effective. This has become very clear to me as my return trip home by train now takes two hours.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
As I reached the 10km mark on my route the sun was getting low in the sky and I had a decision to make; catch the train here or push through the last ~5km to the next station.
Feeling that I had a good 45 minutes of sunset/dusk before it got proper dark, and I was probably only an hour from the end, I picked up the pace and moved forward.
The thing about walking through a deep, winding river valley is that even though the sun hasn't set, the light gets ate up by the hills looming on all sides.
Before I knew it the sun was blanked out and I was swimming in dark shadows. The sky remained bright, but everything below it quickly fell dark far sooner than I had anticipated. I was two kilometres in and did not want to turn back being so close to halfway there.
Stopping to get water from my bag I also dug out my headlamp, an item I had only decided to bring to Japan at the last moment, on the urging of a loved one, and in that moment I was extremely glad to have listened to them.
Donning my trusty headlamp my way forward sprung up once again, with the lines on the road and retro reflectors that flanked it glowing from my new light.
These glowing reflectors made for welcome guides as the light faded, but soon also became eerie glowing reminders of how little else I could see.
The light also gave comfort as it allowed me to signal my presence to the occasional car that would pass me on this narrow road long before they were upon me. A concern that had grown as the light died away.
It's funny how so many sounds in the day mean very little to you, hardly noticed, but once the light had completely gone and my eyes were starved, my ears feasted on the many noises from the forest towering around me, and my imagination had a field day.
A deep, low sound rose up from the forest on my left. The sounds of the rushing river immediately to my right made it impossible to place it's distance or origin, but the low sound was unmistakeably unpleasant. Was it a distance plane? Industrial equipment in the next valley? Or a growling animal just beyond the treeline muffled by the river?
My pace quickened as my ears were unable to make sense of what I was hearing, and I left the sound behind. Before long I came to a mountain tunnel, a few hundred metres long, and foreboding as I approached.
Unlit, but reflectors from the far end were in sight from the entrance.
As I entered the sound of the forest and river dropped away almost immediately, and I was left with only the sound of my footsteps reverberating back at me from the walls of the passageway.
I am not one to suffer from claustrophobia, but in that near complete darkness, devoid of any background noise, that mountain tunnel felt far smaller to me than it really was.
Moving quickly through the tunnel, my mind shifted it's focus from being accosted by uneen forest creatures and looked instead to the real possibility of getting caught by a car entering the tunnel in front of me.
I hurried to the mouth of the tunnel, and just as I breathed a sigh of relief to find no oncoming traffic, a loud and chaotic noise eruoted directly overhead at the tunnel's exit.
Already on edge, this unexpected noise spooked me. My fight or flight instincts took over and I broke into a sprint, worried that something large was about to fall on me from above.
This fear wasn't unwarranted, throughout the valley there was warning signs calling out the danger of falling rocks, and an hour earlier I had passed an old landslide that had come down the valley next to the road.
Only a few steps into my sprint I became aware of the source of the noise as a cluster of birds flew overhead. They were as spooked by my sudden appearance at the exit of the tunnel as I was by their clatter.
I stopped and laughed in relief. Setting I my bag down on the side of the road I took a drink from my water bottle and checked my GPS. I was just a little ways from the main road, and from there a kilometer from my train station finish line.
The rest of the walk was down a road populated by large trucks, heavy with cargo. But their constant presence, and the numerous lights they are festooned with, brought a certain comfort where I would have normally cursed sharing a route with them.
I am now sitting in Kyoto station eating dinner and counting my gray hairs to see how many new ones I have collected today.
This will be the last walk I take from Kyoto, my progress now outstrips the value of taking the train to continue. I will take the rest of my time here to enjoy Kyoto before relocating to Nagoya and picking up where I left off.
The experiment of section hiking the route between Kyoto to Nagoya was an interesting one, and within shorter distances it may have continued value to my adventure. But I don't think that I will replicate the process over such large distances.
I will probably also make more conservative decisions when it comes to pushing past sunset out in rural areas.
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