To Kirara Taki

 

After leaving the cannons of Tebikigaura Daiba Park my route along the coast follows Route 9 and the railway.

This section of coast has a lot of rocks, many just a little submerged and makes sailing close to the coast quite difficult. While sailing with a friend in a yacht with a keel, we scraped rocks a couple of times.

the road and railway are quite high above the water for this section.

The cape of the Shimane Peninsula ahead beckons.

A little further ahead is the Tagi fishing harbour.

Back in the town at the mouth of the river is a harbour, and I often see huge floating cranes moored there, but this harbour further along the coast has the Japan Fisheries building.

Up ahead the two wind generators on the hill above Kirara Taki, the michi-no-eki.

Then, another small harbour. I actually know this one quite well as my friend had his yacht moored here.

The road descends slightly and I pass through what is called Oda.... Little Paddy, not Big Paddy.

The small Oda River empties into the sea...

And then the beaches begin...

The area around Kirara Taki, the largish Michi no Eki, literally "road station" , a kind of service area without gas stations...

In recent years they have developed the area as a beach resort....

The beaches don't really compare with the ones we have down in Iwami..... but most of the population of Shimane lives in this end of the prefecture, so its the best they have I guess....

The previous post in this series on my walk along the Japan Sea Coast was on Tebikigaura Park.

Tebikigaura Daiba Park

 

Tebikigaura Daiba Park is a small clifftop park overlooking Tagi Port and the mouth of the Tagi River which formed the boundary between the old provinces of Iwami and Izumo.

It's the summer solstice and I am starting the 6th leg of my walk heading east along the Sea of Japan coastline and have just entered Izumo.

The most intriguing thing at the park was a pair of cannon. The first a full-size replica of a Japanese-style cannon, and the second, below, a 3/4 scale replica of a Western cannon.

In the 18th century the Matsue Domain installed two batteries, each of three cannon, at this spot and down at the mouth of the river.

The replica cannons here are based on documentation of another battery further up the coast in Tottori.

Looking across the bay is Hinomisaki, the western cape of the Shimane Peninsula where I would be visiting next day.

This area of beach and coast is named Tebikigaura after a myth concerning a daughter of Okuninushi named Adakayanushitakikkihime who lived in the area. She is the kami of the Adakaya Shrine much further east of Matsue with the cool straw serpents...

My plan was to get as far as around Izumo Taisha and spend the solstice night sleeping out...

The previous post was on the section of coast from Kute to Hane.

Japan Sea Coast Kute to Hane

 

After leaving Kute, a line of small hills separates the road from the sea and inland a largish area of rice paddies.....

This was a brackish lake that has been drained by cutting an opening through the hillside allowing the land to be reclaimed and planted in rice. This was done quite a long time ago in the Kamakura Period.

I am not at all sure where the lake originally drained, but where it now reaches the sea is a spire of rock called Kakedo Matsushima.

It once had a pine tree standing on top of it, and maybe I am misremembering, but I seem to remember it was still there when I first passed by on a train more than twenty years ago.

It is very much a miniature version of Candle Rock, the iconic sight in the Oki Islands.

There is a small harbour then a beach and tucked up against the sheer cliffs the main harbour of Hane.

Hane was at some point a small beach resort and there are still a couple of ryokan operating.

The train line got here in 1912 so it may have started then, although it has the feel of the 1960s about it.

The cliffs are quite impressive and there is a lighthouse on top.

From here there is no access to the coast fo the next 5 kilometers until the mouth of the Tagi River, the old boundary between Iwami and Izumo, so I took thebtrain home from here and will start from Tagi on the next leg.

The previous post was on the previous section of coast from Torii to Kute.

Japan Sea Coast From Torii to Kute

 

Torii has a small harbour, literally a stone's throw from the much bigger Wae Port, probably the biggest port I had yet visited on this walk along the Sea of Japan coast in the Iwami region of Shimane.

Part of the rocky outcropping that makes the eastern edge of the harbour at Torii is a small natural arch or bridge creted by erosion.

After that the beach stretches away towards the next headland.

the narrow coast road heads over the headland...

... to another beach that curves towards the next headland...

Just before that headland is the settlement and fishing harbour of Kute.

The beach is well "protected" by lines of concrete tetrapods offshore....

It's listed as a park but doesn't seem to be a particularly popular beach as there are no eateries, shops, or lodgings nearby....

Kute is relatively large and the harbor is a decent size but just inland is a largish area of paddies so I think farming is at least as important as fishing...

The previous post was on the stretch of coast around Wae Harbour

Goods From Japan