Diary: Tokaido Trail – Day 8 | Iwata | 20.08.2019

09:00 wake up

I prepared myself and took the train from Shizuoka station to Shimada station.

I therefore skipped the Tokaido stations: Mariko, Okabe, Fujieda.

12:30 arrived at the Horai Bridge which is the largest pedestrian wooden bridge in the world spanning 897 meters and certified by the Guinness Book of Records ind 1997.

Note though that there is a larger wooden bridge in existence.

14:00 As a landmark for Shimada I think the Oi River does this justice enough. Not even need to look at the kanjis I can imagine that Oi stands for big because the river is quite big and spread out

15:10 arrived in Kanaya and proceeded to head to the next stations. It is an approximately 4h hike until the next train station so bear in mind you should pack some drinks and time. The hike even included a short bit of the old Tokaido trail stone path.

Up until now I always relied on Google maps but today I just saw that there might be a shorter path than Google shows me. So I accidentally walked up a whole tea Plantage instead of walking around it.

It was quite a steep and even comparable with Mt Takao but I pulled through and arrived at Kakegawa without complications. I accidentally skipped the Tokaido station of Nisseka which was in between because I just moved too fast.

18:40 in Kakegawa the sun already set. I still managed to get a shot of this station’s landmark – the Kakegawa castle. This castle was once obtained by Tokugawa Ieyasu and served as an important castle town along the old Tokaido highway (japanvisitor).

19:00 going to my Hotel in Iwata by train skipping the Fukuroi and Mitsuke Tokaido stations.

Although I had some problems here and there in general the day was proceeding very smooth and I actually walked 4h straight without major breaks.

steps: 38650 (25.5km)

spendings: 1730 hotel, 3600 food and drinks

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