Slices of Life from a Cake Hunter

Day 2. Having had a lovely nights sleep, we all got up on time and headed off into the gentle day. The Sakura in this region is in full bloom, and it’s spectacular. Even the blandest street seems to be livened up by it – and we can’t stop taking pics of it either. We’re now full-on Sakura addicts, having at least a 10-a day photo habit and constantly ooohhhhing and ahhhhhhhhhing all the time. It’s like travelling in a mobile Sakura choir.

After yesterdays extremely exacting day, todays weather was really fresh and clean – and no rain was forecast. The track in the early part of the day had only a 200-meter elevation and that was graduated so it made it very pleasant after the rain/mud/elevation wrestling match we had yesterday. None of us wanted to revisit that one again.

The track was pretty straightforward – not many twists and turns, a few ups and downs but not enough like you’re feeling as if you’re fighting for your life. As a result, there was a much better opportunity to enjoy the landscape and scenery, which was fantastic. One thing I’ve noticed on this hike is that the forests seem heavily managed – there are a lot of coniferous pine trees in straight lines, and a lot of deciduous trees also in straight lines. There also seems to be a lack of wildlife – and I don’t know if that’s because the wildlife avoid the main tracks, or shy away from humans generally but it is a distinct characteristic, and a slightly melancholy one.

Our hiking was lovely today – just what a good days hike should be. The scenery was stunning, the air clean and fresh and the path easy to follow. The only issue was that this day was due to be our longest day covering 25-km (ending near Hongu) so we knew it’d be a slog. I’ve walked 42-km on a camino once – but that was only because I got lost and I ended up with feet like an elephant. When I walked into the hostel, the woman said ‘tusk tusk’. (I couldn’t resist that one. Apologies. I’ll pack my trunk and go).

We made good progress, calculating at the start that we needed to cover half the distance needed by midday and then we’d have 4-5 hours to cover the last 12-13 km.

Overall, we were all pretty satisfied with the trail, the weather, the hike and the day. It filled us all up again, just like a Forest Bath should. If you haven’t heard, this is a real term that emerged in Japan in the 1980s as a physiological and psychological exercise called shinrin-yoku (“forest bathing” or “taking in the forest atmosphere”). A Forest Bath, to be clear, doesn’t mean staggering around in forested areas with your bathtub on your back. I’ve heard of someone getting a tap on the back, but a bathtub would be very silly.

Carrying on, the purpose of a Forest Bath was seen to be twofold: to offer an eco-antidote to tech-boom burnout and to inspire Japanese people to reconnect with and protect the country’s forests. The Japanese quickly embraced this form of ecotherapy and then in the 1990s, researchers began studying the physiological benefits of forest bathing, providing the science to support what we innately know: time spent immersed in nature is good for us:

https://www.japan.travel/en/guide/forest-bathing/

So it was a great day and we all recharged our batteries, which was slightly challenging as there are no plug-sockets in the forest. Around about 4pm, we stepped down an embankment and into a fairytale street full of Sakura at one end and the odour of smelly eggs at the other. Nope, no-one had done anything suspicious (although it would have been a good tactic to let one out and let the volcanic sulphur cover it up) – it was the smell of the hot springs!