Wingnuts and Wagtails
Following the Myohoji River from source to sea
I start under a crisp blue autumn sky. The clouds are soft-edged in long streaks, like The Simpsons opening credits. The cherry tree leaves are starting to yellow and droop. The persimmon leaves are drooping even more, dropping and leaving the still-yellow fruit naked on their branches. The dark pink four-o’clock flowers are not yet open, which was fair enough, because it was only 2:47.
I walk back up the valley from Myohoji station. Both to find the source of the Myohoji River, and to see if I can spot any sign of the coal-mining I had read about last time. The villages are almost gone. A scattering of urban farms in a sea of allotments is all that is left. Three high school kids come running down a side path through bamboo clumps laughing hysterically, then calming themselves as they reach the river and the prospect of other people.
I push as high up the valley as I can go, the lane becomes a track, then a path, then dissipates into the forest undergrowth of the hillsides. The river source is hidden somewhere in there, below the reservoir where I could not pass on my last walk.
The river is concrete-lined, but somehow the wingnut trees break through any crack or gap they can find. Wagtails skitter about on the level river bottom. The higanbana spider lilies are still full Ferrari red, a nice contrast with the now-yellowing wingnuts. There’s no sign of coal mining, the blackened patch where a farmer has burned his rice chaff catches my eye for a second, but I quickly dismiss it.
More streams join the Myohoji, but one stream has been backfilled, and nearby residents are growing their taro in the crumbly face where backfill meets water. Now, I have to walk along the main road, and dart off to the side to see the river properly. The shade under the hillside holds the cool feel and darkness of winter.
The valley tightens. Overhead, the highway passes, and beneath the highway, the oval venting tower for the tunnels either side of these highway bridges. I passed here once before, returning from a New Year’s Eve night out on foot after missing the last train. This part of the walk home was deeply spooky, with the mountains towering on each side, and what was the strange humming ovaloid building with now windows?
In the autumn sunshine, it’s a different experience, and further down, I find the gravesite of one of Japan’s great warriors — Nasuno Yoichi. He was a master shot with the bow and arrow for the Minamoto clan during the Genpei civil war. It was a true civil war, with families torn apart. While Nasuno and his younger brother supported the Minamoto clan, his nine older brothers supported the rival Taira clan.
Nasuno’s great feat was to shoot an arrow from horseback and hit a fan on the mast of a Taira ship with a single shot. A sign at the foot of the stone steps leading up to the temple says that “in his later years Nasuno Yoichi visited this area to pay tribute but fell ill and died here.” Sadly, the temple doors were locked, so I couldn’t get a closer look at his grave, or should I say one of his graves, as he seems to have another one in Kyoto.
After the pass, the coastal plain. A horde of name-tag-wearing parents pour out of a hillside high school, temporarily slowing my stride. The riverside becomes a long park with rows of cherry trees, and I take a rest and glug half a bottle of water.
Then, the final approach to the sea, a straight shoot to a harbour. I walk down some steps to the river level, hoping to be able to walk right by the river as it enters the harbour, but I can’t find a way along the river bottom that doesn’t end or isn’t blocked by side drains. I give up and am screened from the final release of the Myohoji River by a tsunami-proof wall of dark concrete.
From the roof of an organic supermarket (“You can only get there by car,” according to the owner of a café near my workplace — well I proved her wrong!), I could see the harbour and the final moments of the Myohoji River too, as well as right out across Osaka Bay.
Poor Japanese rivers, cemented and straightjacketed.
Thanks for the ride. Bonus points for including your shadow in one of the pictures!