lost or what?

Here is Takamatsu station near dawn. Great weather, great light, great clouds. Today was a cash only train ride, 1200 yen (about $12) in each direction.

An hour and 10 minutes later, Motoyama station. It is really in the middle of nowhere. Getting off was the honour system. no one to check tickets.

Some of today's low mountain range. I walked a few hundred metres out of my way to visit a convenience store to stock up on supplies.

I paused for reflection and inhaled some farmer smoke.

First gate of the day, but nowhere near the most famous.

However this is probably the nicest shrine of the day.

The hike start is not too far from the station, it starts at a location labelled as a county park, I can see that part of the mountain used to be a quarry.

I could have stopped and played a round of mini golf, of course there was no one else around. There are however toilets and vending machines.

There was a nice rock face / waterfall near the car park.

After a brief stair case, here is the first view of the day.

The actual hiking path starts here, hence the sign.

The hiking trail today was a proper trail from the start, but never really muddy or slippery or dangerous in any way, but be aware, no other people, well almost none as you shall see.

Parts of the trail had been recently maintained.

There were a lot of flat bits suitable for jogging, but there were a lot of spider webs and giant spiders, I had to walk with a stick in front of my face. Thankfully my course today meant I doubled back over much of my path, so I could run on the bits I had already removed the spiders from.

There are a lot of labelled summits on the trail, but the highest is under 500m. Today is all about the view.

And so here is the first of many view photos to come.

More little mountains protruding out of very flat farm land today, more than yesterday even.

But also islands in the sea (ocean).

Great views with great clouds.

As always there is a satellite spy station on one of the summits, and a hidden road to get there. You only have to walk on it for a hundred metres or so.

Interesting clouds. The whole coast is little cities between little mountains.

Top shrine! But I am not even half way through my hike.

This is the view most people see.

It is also the only spot that I saw any other people at all, because they walk up this stair case from the sea, but not to see the shrine....

Instead they puff their way up the stairs to see the gate in the sky.

Takaya shrine if you are looking for it on google maps. Here is a landscape view.

I pushed on to the next summit. It has a water tank.

Great views all day.

There was a little bit of colour around, but autumn is late this year.

Next view, with a rope. I suggest yamap if you want to do the course I did as there are a few different choices to make.

Also a surprise wheat field.

Every few hundred metres, another view point.

Almost at the furthest point from the start where I will turn around, and it got colourful, I think some of the plants here have been planted deliberately by humans.

Redundant view.

I think that is basically back in the direction I had come from.

Or maybe that is, not great light on this shot though.

This area near Shihoyama was really nice, I was very surprised there was no one else around.

I now started to run most of the way back, confident I had knocked all the spiders down.

I look a lot like myself in this photo.

Nearly back at this point.

I had timed it (by accident) almost perfectly to meet the once an hour train, but still had enough time for a rare photo of a farm that is not burning any rubbish.

5 minutes until my train comes, what can I do to kill time?

The stance... but a weak stance. This is my new favourite shirt, $8 at Big W.

And then it was time for a 70 minute ride back to Takayama, for much of the journey I had the train to myself.
Once again this took a while to type up after a long day, so not too many photos later.