Post-Tokaido

For a time after returning home from walking the Tokaido I was afraid I'd never walk again. When I say "walk again", I refer of course to traveling on foot over long distances. My groin and ingrown toenail problems put a damper on the first half of the Tokaido walk, and although I had them both under control by the time I reached Tokyo, the toe was quite sore for several weeks after I got back to New Zealand and this prevented me from doing any serious walking. Even after it got better, the physical and mental anguish I went through made me think I couldn’t cope with another long journey on foot.

I'm happy to report, however, that recently I've been thinking seriously about my next expedition. I briefly considered doing the Nakasendo again, this time in the opposite direction to that which we walked in 2007 (i.e. Tokyo to Kyoto). But then I thought that it would be better to tackle the remaining three old highways of Japan first, and so my attention turned to the Koshu Kaido (C on the map above), which links Tokyo with Shimo-Suwa in Nagano prefecture. Looking on a map, I saw that it would take me through some parts of Japan I've never visited before, including Kofu and the Fuji Five Lakes region (the latter not strictly on the Koshu Kaido, but close enough that I could travel there by train for a night).

A couple of weeks ago I sat down and worked out a schedule. At just over 210km, the Koshu Kaido is considerably shorter than both the Nakasendo and the Tokaido, and if I cover an average of around 20km a day I should be able to walk it in 12 days. I'm not sure when I'll do this. Ideally I'd like to be in Shimo-Suwa for the Onbashira festival, which would enable me to do some research for my movie/novel, but the next festival is in April next year, which is perhaps too soon. Then again, this festival is only held once every six years, so the next one after that won't be until 2016!