Best forest of trip this morning. Really nice trail. And a first class clear-air view of distant 3000m snow covered peak; we're lucky the rain cleared the smog.
We have finally left the part of the Tokai that hovers around the urban/rural interface. When the trail was conceived and designed in the late 1960's it would have been entirely on farms and in forest. But Osaka, Kyoto, and Nagoya have sprawled to the outer edges of the plain and swallowed up pieces of the trail. Already this afternoon things feel different; we are now really in rural and woodland habitats.
All hiking trips have many hours of routine walking/eating/sleeping, punctuated by unexpected treats. We had one treat yesterday and one today.
Yesterday morning at 6:00AM we were still in bed at our giant picnic shelter waiting for the rain to subside. A man came to the edge of the shelter, did not see us, and did a prolonged, loud, realistic rooster cock-a-doodle-doo call. It was completely unexpected and bizarre. He saw us, came to say good morning, and was embarrassed by his crowing. He used his very limited English to explain: 2 cats, food; he comes every morning, crows to call the cats, and feeds them.
And today's treat: we're ambling down the road and Jim tells me that in the Family Mart yesterday he saw an entire magazine featuring tricked out Dump Trucks. Two minutes later one drove by. Very entertaining.
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