Tanoura Coast to Orii Coast

 

After the Tanoura Beach my route heads inland and then starts up towards another pass.

It's May so paddies are flooded and in some cases planted.....

Miniature farm machinery is one of the reasons rice is so expensive in Japan. Every farmer, who has a tiny farm , must buy machinery to plant and a different one to harvest. Each is used for just a couple of days a year. I my little village there is some sharing, but still Yanmar, Honda, etc are very profitable for a reason...

In many cases after the machine has planted humans must go in finish tings off....

A tiny narrow road over the pass..... I love these roads.... no traffic and wide enough....

Coming down into the tiny settlement of Imaura.....

Really, ormer settlement would be more accurate..... there was a couple of inhabited houses among the abandoned ones, but by now they too are abandoned.....

There is a substantial shrine, and a little harbour without any buildings....

The shrines name is Imoyama Shrine but I can find no sources on which kami are enshrined or any history.

It does have a kaguraden that is still in use, so I guess there are enough scattered farms in the surrounding mountains to support an annual matsuri.

There seems to be just a couple of small boats at the harbour, out of the water.

It is a popular spot for recreational fishermen ( and women)....

After climbing out from Imaura harbour I pass by the Orii Cliifs, top photo of this post. A little while later I look down on the Orii Coast and Mount Taima looms ahead.

Then I drop down to Orii Beach, well "protected" by lines of tetrapods. On the way down I pass another abandoned love hotel..... at Orii Station I hop on a train and head home.

The previous post was on the walk from Kamate to Tanoura...

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Kamate

 

The fishing harbours at Kamate are located in a small bay that is divided by a small island that is now connected to the land.

Coming up the coast from the southwest, the first part of the bay has what looks to be the original little harbour.

There is a small shrine here, though not marked on the maps and with no signboard.

My guess would be an Ebisu Shrine....

At the mouth of the little harbour are a few groups of rocks with form two tiny islands.

These are the islands mentioned in Kushirogahime Shrine that I visited the day before.

They are where the male-female pair of kami sometimes meet....

The tiny harbour has been reinforced with plenty of tetrapods.....

The other side of the bay has now been turned into a large harbour by the construction of four huge concrete piers and breakwaters...

On a day like today,... cloudless and windless, the water inside the harbour is as flat as a mirror...

The island that is now connected to the land has a big shrine on top, but on this trip, I didn't climb up to visit.

The previous post in this series on day 34 of my Chugoku walk was on the walk here from Tsuda.

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Tomonoura Harbour

 

Tomonoura is now a fairly decent-sized harbour filled with small fishing boats.

Walking around the small town, glimpses of the hatbour down narrow alleys are not uncommon.

During the Edo Period it was a major port bustling with ships of many kinds.

Its importance as a harbour goes back much further, being recognized as such in poems of the Nara Period.

It was during the Edo Period though when the port reached its peak, in part due to the Kitamebune ships that docked here. Kitamaebune was the trade route that ran up and down the Japan Sea coast before connecting with the Inland Sea route to Osaka.

Tomonoura was also one of the ports where official delegations stopped on their way to the capital. Not just daimyo heading to Edo, but the Dutch delegations from Nagasaki, and perhaps most notably the Korean delegations.

Further down the coast is Shimokamagari island, also well known for the Korean delegations and which I covered in this earlier post.

The harbour is almost circular in shape, created by constructing breakwaters/wharfs out of stone ( photo 11) . A pleasant sight compared to most Japanese harbours of great, concrete constructions.

Also notable is the lighthouse, 11 meters tall, constructed in 1850 and which burned all through the night. (photos 6 and 7)

Other than the fishing boats, there is a small ferry out to a couple of the offshore islands, and a tour boat that cruises around Benten Island.

The previous post in this series exploring Tomonoura was on the Historic Preservation District.