Okinawa : Hiking in Daisekirinzan 1

After my unforgettable whale-watching experience, me and my travel partner drove up to the northern tip of Okinawa island for a hike. As usual, the 'hike' was really just a walk because the path is typically beaten and some even paved which I suspect it is for the adventurous high-heelers (I can never understand why young Japanese women refuses to wear proper boots for hiking? Not stylish enough, maybe?)

So, hiking in popular or well-known places in Japan usually means that you can actually wear high heels and 'hike'!

Anyway, Daisekirinzan is one of the popular hiking spots in Okinawa. It is an area made up of strangely shaped karst formed over millions of years. The geological formation by water and wind on soft limestone rocks form the karst found abundant in this area and it makes great landscape feature. There are four color-coded hiking courses; the Strange rock course, the Panoramic course, the Subtropical Forest course and one barrier-free course for its visitors. 

At first, we thought that we are going to do just two courses, but after some thoughts, we figured out that we will have enough time to do all three courses as each course, just take about half an hour and still make it to another place that we are planning to go after Daisekirinzan.

We started on the yellow Strange Rock course which features oddly-shaped limestone rocks. It seems to be the longest course and travels up into the hills connecting the red Panoramic course. Looks like a little more strenuous course compared to the other, but I think it is relatively an easy course to do.

Pretty fascinating and there were lots of explanation on how the rocks form (it is written in Japanese). On this course alone, we took about one hour to finish it as we stopped to read and to photograph the nature (my favourite!!!)

From the Strange Rock course, we were able to go on straight to the Panoramic course.

To be continued...