Utago Fishing Village

 

Utago is a fairly decent-sized little fishing village. At the edge of town is a new fishing harbour, but the old, original harbour is in the middle of town after crossing over a small river.

Dark, weathered wood is the norm for these places affected by the weather that often arrives from the sea. Utago has a railway station, but the buildings were destroyed in a storm a few years ago and has been replaced with a small bus shelter-type structure. One bench, no ticket machine....

The harbour is quite picturesque, with pine trees planted around the village shrine. It deserves a post of its own which will be next.

It seems like it would have been a small, thriving community some decades ago. Now there are no stores except for a konbini ten kilometers away.....

A few hundred meters up the coast is a tiny little harbour with just a handful of houses...

In front of one, an old lady trims seaweed....

This tiny settlement has its own small Ebisu Shrine, and a roadside shrine of sacred stones...

The previous post in this series on day 31 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage was on the beautiful walk to here from Kiyo, down the coast where I started the day.

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A Walk from Koshigahama to Nagato-Oi

 

Late March, and the cherry blossoms are in full bloom on the Sea of Japan coast in Yamaguchi.

This was day 30 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage, and the for the next few days there would not be any pilgrimage temples to visit, but the route is along a spectacular section of coastline where the road is literally right next to the sea.

Koshigahama is home to a pretty large fishing port, but fish is not the only product harvested from the sea.

As well as squid hanging up to dry, there was a lot of wakame, a species of kelp, and widely eaten in Japan.

Spring is the primary harvesting season in Japan.

Looking up the coast at my route. The high mountain in the distance is Mount Takayama near Susa. I expect to be there in about 3 days.

have no idea what these tiny fishes are that are being dried.

Not a big fan of small, bony fishes, though I must admit i used to enjoy whitebait back in Cornwall.

I suspect this guy doesn't care less which kind of fish he gets to eat....

If its not cloudy or windy, then the sea here is usually clear and turquoise blue.

The train line from Masuda to Hagi also hugs the coast and so these views can be enjoyed from a slow train....

Oshima is the biggest of the islands visible most days. In good weather, Mishima, much further offshore, can be glimpsed in the far distance.

For the next few kilometers there are no houses or settlements until Oi.

The previous post was on the scenic Itsukushima Shrine on Myojin Pond in Koshigahama.

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