We went to the Kumano booking companies office this morning at 9:00. I received my refund in cash. It then took us over an hour to figure out how to get our luggage to where we are staying tomorrow night. The best option they could come up with was for us to send our luggage this morning but they were concerned they might not make it due to the weather conditions. We decided to take a bus sometime tomorrow to go where we are to stay tomorrow night and take our bags with us.
There is a 6:35 bus if the buses are running. They cancelled all trains and buses after noon today and can’t tell us when they might be back running. There is a bus about noon that may work better. We had hoped to get in early enough to do some walking backwards on the trail but not sure if that will work.
The weather is to start clearing around noon tomorrow so if we can get to where we want to walk from we can do some walking. The challenge is to get there from here as where we want to get to is in the mountains and in the middle of the island. There is concern about the roads being open due to mudslides.
We discovered the very kind people we have worked with will not tell us if they think it is safe to walk or not. They had a big look of relief on their face though when we decided to go with our plan to carry our bags on the bus and not try to walk the 13K trail we had hoped to walk tomorrow. They are concerned about the trail having a mudslide on it due to the high amounts of rain and high winds we will be getting this afternoon. There is no exit point on the trail so once you go you either have to walk all the way or turnaround and go back to where you started.
The rain so far has been fairly light although since we are in the city with tall buildings around us I’m not sure that is what is happening in the open areas. The strongest rain and wind hasn’t gotten here yet. There were some pretty strong gusts already when we were out walking to the Kumano Companies office. We were soaked by the time we walked back to our hotel.
Nicole found an ATM machine and got some more cash for us. We didn’t expect to need so much cash for the buses and food we have needed due to not walking as expected. We do need to get the bigger bills broke down before we head to the more rural area again. The rural areas and buses don’t take credit cards.
We found a restaurant that was open on the way back to our rooms. We each had a rice omelet that had ketchup in it and on it. We hadn’t eaten a good meal since breakfast yesterday so it was good to get a good meal. Not sure if anything will be open later today when the strongest part of the typhoon hits.
The locals don’t seem too concerned about the typhoon. They told me they were used to them and know the typhoon can change directions and they don’t worry until they need to. Guess it is the same with our tornadoes back home.
Not sure what we will do to entertain ourselves this afternoon. Not a good day to go sightseeing for sure. It has been very disappointing to not get to walk the trail much. One disadvantage of this trail over the Camino is that this one is so short you don’t get lots of other days to walk.
We saw several other walkers in the office today doing what we are doing and changing their plans. I’m sure there are other walkers that didn’t and they are walking today. Betting if I wasn’t here Nicole would have walked today. I feel bad about holding her back yet my mother’s heart is glad she didn’t walk.
I can sit outside during a tornado warning and feel very safe as I know what to look for. I don’t know how a typhoon behaves and I hate to take chances. The trail is very hard on a dry day. I can’t imagine how hard it would be today in 50 mph plus winds and strong rain.
I was impressed with the people who helped us today. They helped us with our bus schedule for tomorrow and showed us many different options. No one can tell us what will be running when yet so we will have to stay flexible and figure it out tomorrow.
In some ways this has become a bigger adventure than planned. We are both disappointed we haven’t been able to do what we came for. But I think we are both still glad we came. Japan is a beautiful country with nice people.
May be naps for us this afternoon. Maybe if we take a nap we can stay up past 8:00 at night and be able to sleep in a bit tomorrow morning.
We are tucked into a safe and dry hotel room waiting for this typhoon to move on out. We are entertaining ourselves watching Japanese television and attempting to understand what they are saying. Some of the commercials are hilarious.