Countryside in Sanuki, Joban Line

Well, I rate that as a very successful morning! As far as hiking guidebooks in English are concerned, they tend to focus on the west or north of Tokyo. As I live in the north-west of Chiba, this means a good 2.5 hour train journey to get to suggested walks.

This morning, I had intended to go again to Mount Takao, so was on a train at 6:10... Of course, it was packed with people going to work, so I decided to go in the opposite direction, and see where that got me. If there aren't any suggested walks for this area, then I'll have to find my own!

I decided to use the Joban line towards Katsuta in Ibaraki and use the journey to make a note of nice bits of countryside close to stations. (It looks like the riverside walking at Tennodai and Fujishiro stations might be nice, and also the countryside near Sanuki (this post) and Takahama station.) I thought about going to Hitachi Seaside Park and getting a bus from Ishioka station, but changed my mind by the time I reached that station! Fortunately, you can travel on a train and just double back if you fall asleep or change your mind, and it doesn't cost you any extra, so I got the train back for 30 minutes to Sanuki station, where I had been the most impressed by the countryside. Incidentally, there are quite a few towns called Sanuki in Japan - this one is in Ryuugasaki City, Ibaraki Prefecture.

Walking along the road next to the tracks, on the right-hand side, heading to Ushiku for about 10 minutes leads you a small track over a bridge. From there, you can just follow whatever little road or dirt track, through allotments and rice fields, that you choose.

Next time, I will try not to play with my phone so much on the train journey, so that my phone battery has rather more charge for my GPS... Lucky really I had my charger and that kept me going until I got to a station at 1pm - there weren't many people around. Even if there were, directing me to a station down dirt tracks 45 minutes walk away wouldn't have been easy! I might get a paper map of the area now too.









And a short video clip of a rice field - I love the movement and the sound, as the wind blows!



So that was Sanuki, which can be done in under an hour by train. The name also appealed because it was just one syllable different to the Japanese racoon dog, the tanuki...