TNT Day 34 - the kindness of strangers

 24 oct

Map 24: (hotel) tarui -> Mino kokubun-ji temple ruins -> hirao dam -> fujinomori park ->Yukei-ji -> Ibuki Shrine -> sekigahara (Airbnb)

Sunshine, scattered clouds, mid/high 20s

Luckily yesterday's rain rained itself out over night and I was greeted with sun, blue sky and puffy white clouds this morning.

Hirao dam pond number 2, despite the roads to it being closed there was a car and 2 blokes having a fish as I walked by at 9:30am.


Back into the rice fields.

Fujinomori park.

Yukei-ji temple.

I detoured to the site of the former shintarui station for a geocache, and did some freight train spotting while I was there.




Getting back on the trail I passed through farming plots and under railway tracks.

A tokai nature trail rest area next to the train line - a good camp spot but only if you've got ear plugs.


Ibuki Shrine.

At 2 pm I sat down on a bench in a little park in the outskirts of sekigahara and had a snack. As I was chowing down on a whole chocolate block the lady who lived next to the park pulled up in her car and then came and talked to me. She had never seen a foreigner in sekigahara and wanted to know what I was doing. After explaining, she invited me in for coffee and offered to show me around sekigahara in her car.

After coffee, some google translate and a tour of her house, she then showed me the highlights of sekigahara. One of the places was the sekigahara cosmos field which had a bunch of butterflies flitting around and some very patient photographers laying in wait.

The blueish ones were アサギマダラ, the chestnut tiger butterfly (Parantica sita).

The orange ones I believe are Indian fritillary butterflies (Argynnis hyperbius).

The tour ended with us picking up her granddaughter from school. When we got back to her house I loaded on my backpack and said goodbye. As she bid me farewell she gave me a packet of goodies for the journey (she had bought these when we stopped in at the visitors centre - I had thought she has just doing some shopping for herself  while we were there).

16km, highest point:139m, elevation: +370m - 285m

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