Friday morning we managed to get a rental car for two days and took off for Yakusugi Cedar Land - sounds very touristy but we did a beautiful walk and saw the 1800-year old Buddha Sugi (Buddha Cedar). The drive into the mountains was breathtaking, with views back to the harbour and beyond. The vegetation has definitely changed with never a palm tree in sight and pine trees and cedars now predominating the landscape. Following lunch we set off for the Yudomari hot spring but the idea of sitting in hot water under the hot sun was not that appealing! We made our way back along the coast to the harbour at Anbo and then it was off to dinner at a local Japanese restaurant with Takimoto and the rest of the gang.
Saturday we went in the opposite direction, starting our day at Shiratani Unsuikyo, a recreation reserve and home to the 3000-year old Yayoisugi Cedar tree! We enjoyed this walk as well but thought the first one was a lot better. However, seeing the old tree made it all worthwhile. We continued our drive anti-clockwise around the island. The roads are excellent and best of all the speed limit is about 50 km/hr so it is easy driving round the rugged coast. At Miyanoura, the main town of the island, we stopped off for a lunch of Japanese-style burgers before buying some 'picnic' food for our dinner later on. We had hoped to snorkel at Isso Beach but the tide was too low so we continued on to our destination at Kuriohama Beach, stopping off at the Ohko-no-taki 80-metre waterfall on the way. The road along this section passes through the World Natural Heritage Site and we saw quite a few local deer as well as Japanese macaques. The macaques were quite different from the ones we have seen in other parts of SE Asia - they have very short or no tails, dark pink faces and longer hair. They don't seem to have much fear of cars or humans approaching so we were able to get a few pictures of them.
We finally arrived at Kuriohama Beach, unpacked our picnic dinner and enjoyed a sundowner while waiting for the next event. This was the hatching of loggerhead turtles which we didn't expect to happen until after 8:00 p.m.. We were very lucky though and the first one appeared coming out of the sand about 6:45 p.m.!! It took a while to get all the way out and then, one after the other, more appeared. The eggs had been placed inside an enclosure so the hatchlings had to be lifted out and placed about 10 metres from the water where they quickly made their way into the sea and swam away. It was another amazing sight to see but very sad to know that only about one in 5,000 baby turtles will survive. At least these ones had survived the birds but big fish would be waiting just off shore for them.
So, from the old trees to the new turtles, we had had an amazing couple of days.
We left Anbo on Monday and motor-sailed 57 NM to Yamakawa. The wind was very light and we had current against us so a slow day. We are now on the island of Kyushu, one of the big four islands of Japan. The harbour here is very well protected, 31 deg 12.167N, 130 deg. 38.026E. We were planning to leave tomorrow, Wednesday, but the weather forecast is not looking that good so we may be here for a few more days - tomorrow will tell.
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