Fortunately all it took was a big bottle of water, a couple Excedrin and an hour of napping before I felt better. The kids grabbed a light lunch and we headed out for our final tourist area, Kongou Sekirinzan (a seaside national park).
Mt. Kongou-sekirin was created from the rain on Okinawa eating away the limestone rocks. This is the only place in Japan this Karst exists (straight from the brochure).
We had already driven by this site on our way back from Hedo point, but didn't realize what it was until we say the brochure at the hotel. The hike wasn't nearly as rough as the day before and the views were even more breath-taking. Since it is August (Hot and Humid) we had the place almost completely to ourselves. A Bus took us to the Welcome Center and a combination of four courses brought us back to our car.
The first course is a Barrier-Free course. This is a nice walk along flat boardwalks and had pretty views of the mountain peak. Unfortunately it is completely in the sun, so we didn't stay on this one for long.
The second course is the "Superb View" course. We took a leisurely walk through the jungle to the edge of a cliff, where we could see forever. If you look back at our pictures of Hedo point you can see the outcrop we were on, just as you can see Hedo point in the picture I took from here. It was amazing how far away we really were from the ocean. This course lead right into Course Three.
Course Three is the Strange and Big Rocks course. After already seeing some strange rock formations on the last two courses this was a bit of a let down. But it was a nice walk through the cool jungle and it led right to the Welcome Center, and the welcome center had Ice Cream! Lyle tried another new flavor, Okinawan Sweet Potato. The Sweet Potato here is naturally purple and is popular in a lot of their sweets. It was pretty good.
After our little break we found the final course, the Forest Course. This took us through the gajumaru (banyan trees of the tropics) including trees with some of the biggest trunks in Japan. About 100 meters into this final course I took a misstep and rolled my ankle. This is the same ankle I always twist. On my fall down I slammed the camera into a rock. Both the camera and a were a little worse for wear but able to complete our mission to the front gate. This is where I decided I don't vacation well.
We found the road out (easy thanks to the sign!) and headed back to the hotel for a quick swim, shower and our final dinner at the resort. Lyle and I went for a final (slow) walk on the beach, then headed back to be in bed, again, before 10.
The next morning we got up to find our car battery completely dead. After finding someone to give us a jump, we headed home. Good thing, I don't think I could "relax" anymore LOL
Enjoy the slide show of some of the Okuma pictures we took over the 4 days we were there.
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