Ishigaki Island Report – Part 2
Iriomote – Uehara side
Together with the lady from Canada, I went to Iriomote by speed boat. These speed boats are quite some monsters. They have turbo whatsoever engines and ride at 50 to 60 km/h. At such speeds the water becomes like rock and there is quite some bumping involved. The engine roars like a beast from hell and conversation in the back of the boat is impossible. Inside the cabin it’s still loud but you can talk to each other.
Iriomote is famous for its mangroves and untouched nature and we went by bus to the mouth of a river and booked a mangrove tour. The fantastic river looks like from an Indiana Jones movie.
The boat throws you off at the edge of its shippable terrain and from there you can hike for an hour to two waterfalls. The hike through the woods was wonderful. The vegetation reminded me of Able Tasman national park in New Zealand, curly farns everywhere.
The way close to the first waterfall is off limits, and you can only see it from afar. You can get much closer to the second one.
Then back to the boat landing place and it returns you to the river peer where you then have to wait for an hour for the bus back to the harbor. The day was perfect for this hike, sunny with a few clouds, but still astonishingly cool with some 25 Celsius only. A great day and Iriomote is breathtakingly beautiful.
Hateruma
There is no guarantee for the weather out at such islands. The forecast said it would go downhill from May 1st onwards and so I set out for the farthest-away island of Hateruma. That involved going to the ferry terminal with the scooter! I could only right straight and had to push it around corners but made it to the terminal all right and parking a scooter is indeed much easier than a car and cheaper too. I successfully dumped the thing in a bike and bicycle parking space next to the terminal for free.
The ride to Hateruma was bumpy, the weather heavily cloudy and cool. 500 people seem to be living on Hateruma and in the hazy distance you can see Iriomote looming.
Hateruma has, let’s be honest, only one real attraction, the Nishihama beach. It’s a stretch of two or three kilometers of the finest sand beach with glass-clear water and plenty of dead coral pieces on the shore.
You get around the island by bicycle and I rented one.
As soon as you start riding around the island you’re more or less alone. There are some fields with whatever growth and that’s it. The weather turned worse and it started to rain and it was quite cool and windy. The bad weather might have added to the feeling of “desolate” place.
There is another beach at the south of the island but I found it roped off, with a sign in Japanese that it’s too dangerous to swim there due to strong currents. I gave up on going to the most southern rock where there is apparently a signpost saying you are at the most southern spot of Japan. but rode through the settlement instead. The houses looked all rather old and shabby. One shack had a shop in it with minimum necessary groceries, one gas station, end of story. I rode back to the Nishihama beach and got rained at again. I love this end of the world kinda feeling, but Hateruma was a bit depressing! Mostly due to the weather I suppose. The boat ride back was again quite bumpy and I was happy to arrive safely at the hotel after another scooter ride.
