Imbara to Kawahira along the Gonokawa

 

Early morning, October 15th, 2021, and I begin the 3rd leg of my walk along the south bank of the Gonokawa River to its source. I head along the top of the embankment out of the settlement of Imbara, where the Nigori River enters the Gonokawa.

When the embankment ends I have to cross the disused tracks of the former JR Sanko Line. I have been following the tracks since leaving the mouth of the river in Gotsu.

Imbara has the busiest crossing of the river since leaving the mouth at Gotsu. Route 261 has been following the river on the opposite bank to me but at Imbara it does a 90 degree turn and crosses the river and then follows the Nigoro River up into the mountains and then on to Hiroshima.

As with the whole journey so far, the opposite bank continues to be the most populated and with the busier road.

Another distinction between the two sides is that it was the border, until the Meiji Period, between the Hamada Domain... the side I'm on,.. and the Iwami Ginzan Territory, controlled directly by the Tokugawa Government.

I did read once that whereas most borders that followed rivers, the border would be considered the middle of the river, in this case the Tokugawa actually controlled both banks of the river.

Before reaching the outskirts of Kawamoto, there were few properties on this side of the river. Though Imbara was not so big in terms of population, its transportation junction is home to the biggest retail businesses since leaving Gotsu.... some national chain drugstores and home garden stores as well as the only pachinko parlor in the area and a Michi no Eki.

Kawamoto is the biggest town on the river  since leaving Gotsu and is unusual in that it has chosen not to be merged into a larger "city". In historical times it was home to a small domain with several small castles.

The previous post was on the section from Shikaga to Imbara

Orii Family Samurai Residence & Garden

 

The former Orii family residence in the castle town of Takahashi in Okayama was a fairly high-ranking samurai home built in the late Edo Period.

Placed around the property are various mannequins dressed in period costume including a suitably obsequious servant.

I found it a little creepy. In a museum when viewing a historical tableau, then it seems OK, but when you can walk around in the space I find it somehow distracting.

As this is next door to the Haibara Residence, it would suggest that the two samurai families were of a similar ranking, but as this one is closer to castle I would guess slightly higher ranked.

 

As the photo below shows, there were two separate entrances: one for receiving guests and one for daily life.

All the rooms of the property are open to visitors.

The gardens are nice enough, but nothing special and did not seem well tended. The gardens next door were better in my opinion.

There is a also a museum displaying armour, weapons etc

There are a variety of joint-entry tickets including the neighbouring samurai residence, the castle, and Raikyuji Temple.

These photos are from August, 2014 while I was on day 6 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage. The previous post was the Haibara Samurai Residence next door.

Shikinoue Suspension Bridge over the Yoshino River

 

The Shikinoue Suspension Bridge is a small pedestrian bridge across the Yoshino River near Ikeda, where the  river turns west towards the coast after passing through the famous Koboke Gorge and then the Iya Valley.

My hotel was on the clifftop above the bridge on the south bank of theriver and I had spent the day visiting a couple of temples on the steep mountainside on the north bank.

I dropped down to the river near the Ikeda Dam,built in 1974 and then headed upstream towards the bridge.

The bridge was built at the same time as the dam and is kind of cool as the floor of the crossing is steel grills so you can see the reservoir/river below.

The bridge seems to be little used.

I had walked upstream on the north bank of the river for the past 4 days on the Shikoku Fudo Pilgrimage, and from here I would be  returning down the river on the south bank.

The bridge is 195 meters long, with 160 meters between the two 18 meters high towers. It was a glorious mid December day in 2016.

The previous post was on Mitsugonji Temple.

Unome Inari Atago Inari Shrine

 

For those who follow this blog, I'd like to wish you all the best for the new year, and thanks for visiting.

On top of Mount Atago in Fukuoka, within the grounds of the Washio Atago Shrine, is an Inari Shrine.

I can find almost no info on the shrine other than it is a branch of the head Inari Shrine in Japan, Fushimi Inari near Kyoto. Shrines will get their "divided spirit", bunrei, usually, but not always from the head shrine.  More Hachiman shrines got their bunrei from Iwashimizu Hachimangu rather than the head shrine at Usa, indicating that specific local versions of kami, and Buddhas,  may be considered to have more power or other attributes.

This Inari shrine also has numerous smaller Inari shrines within it, something quite common to Inari shrine. This again indicates that the universality of kami and Buddhas is not absolute. each Inari shrine will be for a particular, local, manifestation of an Inari.

This was the last stop of my epic 77 day walk around Kyushu on the Kyushu Pilgrimage. From here I headed to the station and headed home. I did the walk in about 8 legs, spread over about 15 months. I passed through all of the prefectures of Kyushu and walked during all 4 seasons, though I was mostly able to avoid too much bad weather by fortuitous timing.

In total I have posted about 560 posts on this particular pilgrimage. Because of the structure of Blogger they can be seen and read in reverse chronological order by clicking the Kyushu108 tag at the bottom of the post.

In theory I could do a page where I list all the links in chronological order, but that would take a lot of work and, quite frankly, I don't have enough readers to make it a priority. I have been posting Kyushu Pilgrimage posts about every other post, so from now on I will do the same for my Chugoku Pilgrimage posts, that is to say, every other post will be a Chugoku post. The posts in between I will continue to post on the other pilgrimages... Shikoku, Shikoku Fudo Myo, Shodoshima, Saigoku, Iwami, Kinki Fudo, Kyushu Fudo, and Sasaguri as well as the other series like the Japan Sea Coast.

In the Kyushu Fudo Myo Pilgrimage walk I at times follow the same route as this pilgrimage but at others venture to different places via different routes.

The previous post was on the views from Mount Atago.

The Storks of Toyooka

 

Oriental White Storks, konotori in Japanese, used to be widespread around Japan. The last one died in Toyooka in 1971.

It seems the primary cause of their extirpation was the huge amount of chemicals used in modern Japanese agriculture.

A captive breeding program was started in Toyooka in the 1960s but without success. Russia donated three pairs of storks, and in 1989, the first chick was born, with more chicks born in successive years.

To enable the storks to survive in the wild the area began a program of helping local farmers to reduce the amount of chemicals used and to allow their paddies to remain flooded for longer so that the natural food of the storks could proliferate.

They also erected artificial poles with platforms on to replace the natural nesting sites of the storks on top of mature pine trees, all of which had long since been cut down. Finally in 2005 storks were released into the wild and have been successfully breeding since then.

Images of storks abound around the Toyooka, and its possible to see storks in the wild while driving, but on the opposite side of the river to Kinosaki Onsen is the Hachigoro Toshima Wetlands, a nature preserve where the helpful staff will let you use telescopes and binoculars to see storks in the wild, and even have livecams on some of the nests. (first 4 photos)

Closer to Toyoka City is the Hyogo Park of the Oriental White Stork where you can see wild storks as well as captive breeding program and a museum dedicated to the stork and the story of Toyooka's reintroduction. (last 4 photos)

The previous post on things to see and do in the Toyooka area was on the Benzaiten Shrine near the Toshima Wetlands.