A Drive to Hamahiga Island Along the Kaichu Douro
Part 1 - Travel along Routes 75, 8, 37 and 10

Friday - March 10, 2017

DyLon-chan ... Otanjoubi omedeto gozaimasu ! !

I woke up to a quiet house on this day. DyLon flew out yesterday and by now had been to Taipei
and was probably somewhere over the Pacific. Or maybe he was already home. I'll find out in time.

With no specific plans for the day I dragged out my map booklet, got online and searched for some
nearby thing to do. I remembered that I had missed going over to Higa Village on Hamahiga Island
last trip. I did get to Hama Village but spent so much time there that I hadn't left myself much time
or good sunlight to get over to the east side of the island in the same day. "I'll come back another
time," I assured myself but never quite made it that trip. So, today I could atone - and decided to
head out to the Katsuren Peninsula.

While I was looking through the 'things to do' parts of various websites and travel brochures I came
across a pitch for the Sukeran Poultry Farm and Minimini Zoo. It said something about farm-fresh
eggs for a good price and I needed some more eggs anyway, so I put that on my later-in-the-day agenda.

Having no usable GPS - the one in the rental car was all in Japanese - and owing to the fact that since
the fifth or sixth grade I've been a map freak (I used to love to draw maps of various countries), I
decided to spend a little time quite literally mapping out day's plans. If I got lost at least I'd find my way out!

I started with a general area thing that had the main roads in and out, and around, my house.

The next one would help me get to the poultry farm later.

Though I didn't need it I also drew out a guide to get to Hamahiga.

Some two weeks later it dawned on me that the house that I rented included wifi that was provided by
way of a pocket "hot spot" that never actually found its way into my pocket until the last few days. Tsk!

Got myself ready, packed the car with camera gear and, of course, a couple of cans of iced coffee
and took off for Hamahiga. I started out going south on Route 75 past Camp Courtney.

Despite the cool rainy day there were a few people out and about and I got a few images along Rte 75

First photo is along Rte 75 at the Akamichi intersection with Rte 16 in Uruma









In the following segment I'm still driving on Route 75 then turn southeast on Route 8
onto the Katsuren Peninsula then east on Route 37 which leads out to Kaichu Douro

I pulled over along 37 to get some photos of folks out on the beach at low tide, harvesting seaweed.


This is the main entrance to the facility.


To the left of the main entrance is a small fish market.







Back on the road I continue on to Route 10, the Kiachu Douro.

As I mentioned earlier in this segment I stopped on the south side of the road station back in 2014
to rest in their beautifully manicured park. This time, going east, I would stop at the Umi-no eki.


This is the main entrance to the facility.


Just to the left facing the entrance there's a small fish market.







Now, let's go into the main gift shop. Lots of things for sale here but mostly
souvenirs and a lot of over-priced varieties of cookies and other snacks; clothing
and books; just lots and lots of stuff to catch your eye and hopefully your purse-strings!




I love iced coffee in a can but didn't care at all this one in particular.


I spent w-a-y more than I should have for these two books but at least
they are now in my Okinawa Library and one of these days I might even
get them posted to the website. Excellent reading/photos (but text is all in
Japanese). I might have done better at Tuttle's if they had 'em there.

On exiting the main store, off to the left is a nice little ice cream stand. That is bound
to be a real hit on a warm summer day. On this rather chilly, blustery rainy day I found
that ice cream is a great treat in any kind of weather!!





Part 2


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