Izu peninsula

Izu Peninsula walk on Feb 25-26 (leaving on February 24th evening)
Kawazu zakura (sakura) already came into bloom. Hopefully we can enjoy watching sakura as well. The walking trail is named after a famous novel "Izu no Odoriko (The Dancing Girl of Izu)" by Yasunari Kawabata.

As the maximum number of participants has been reached, the registration is closed now.
This will be a car based hike.

-Schedule
Feb 24: Leave Tsukuba center at 19:00 sharp, stay at Villa Yumigahama
(It is a 5 hours' drive to get to Yumigahama. Please be on time!)
Feb 25: Start walking around 10:00.
Tarai Misaki Yuhodo walk, sand ski, Minami-no-sakura Festival, visit Irozaki (Cape Iro) by car, Shimogamo Onsen (hot springs)
Feb 26: Watching sunrise (if you like) around 6:26
Leave the accommodation at 7:30
Yugano bus stop and take a bus at 8:54
Start walking from Suishochishita (水生地下) at 9:30
Back to Yugano around 14:30
Visit Kawazu Cherry Blossom Festival, Onsen (?)
Leave Kawazu around 16:00, arrive at Tsukuba around 23:00

-Expenses
Accommodation: 8,100 yen for two nights, 5,400 yen for one night (No meals)
Villa Yumigahama (http://www.yumigahama.com/english/)
Bus: 950yen (Taxi around 1,200 yen/person)
Onsen (hot spring): 1,000 yen*2
Transportation (car): around 5,000-7,000 yen/person
Club fee: 500 yen
Breakfast + Lunch + Dinner

-What to bring
Hiking shoes
Rain gear
Onsen stuff (towels)
Clothes for changing
Gloves
Drink
Breakfast/lunch for the 25th
Tooth brush

Difficulty; **

--- Izu Peninsula walk report ---

Date: Feb 25-26, 2017
Participant: 11 from Tsukuba, 1 meet at Yumigahama
The weather was lovely on the weekend. And we had wonderful hikes.

Feb 24, Friday
We left Tsukuba center at 19:00. Thanks to all the participants to be there on time. We drove along the coast to get to Yumigahama since the mountain area might have been frozen at night. We arrived at the accommodation a little bit before 25:00. We had two small breaks on the way.
Feb 25, Sat
Stephanie joined us in the morning. We started walking around 10:00 am as planned. Tarai Misaki Yuhodo walk should be 2 hours walk, however it took almost 5 hours. We enjoyed the walk and sand sledding a lot and had lunch in a relax atmosphere. We left the sand
ski place around 14:50 and arrived at yellow flower field near the Minami-no-sakura Festival place around 15:45. We stayed there a bit and went back to the accommodation (another 30 minutes walk) to get our cars. From the car park of Irozaki, we walked about 30 minutes and it was almost time for sunset. Unfortunately there were clouds above the horizon. We went to Gin-no-yu kaikan onsen afterwards but it was full and we decided to go there after dinner. We had dinner at a local restaurant in Shimogamo Onsen area and went back to Gin-no-yu kaikan. However the reception was already closed. A staff introduced us a onsen (ryokan), Irokan. It was kind of funny., as we needed to go to the onsen through a ramen shop.

Feb 26, Sun
Actually we cannot see sun rise from Yumigahama in winter. So we gave up watching it and slept little longer. We left the accommodation around 7:50 to take a bus at Kawazu area. However we changed plan and went to the Kawazu Cherry Blossom Festival
first. The peak of the cherry blossoms were already over a week ago but still we enjoyed watching it, eating festival foods there and left there around 11:00. We decided not to walk all the Odoriko Hodo trail but the seven water falls. So we did 1.5 hours walk and then went to Joren-no-taki by car. Stephanie found a bus back to Kawazu from there and took it at 15:08. The others headed a bit north and stopped for onsen, Yu-no-Kuni Kaikan. While taking onsen, the traffic jam became less. We left the onsen around 17:15 and we arrived in Tsukuba around 23:00 via Shin-Tomei expressway. We had two stops, including dinner stop.

Thank you all the participants for your company!
Special thanks to Kumiko and Thierry for driving all the way. And thank you Thierry for carrying the sleds during the walk.