A little bit of everything

 This weekend we had some lovely weather here. On Saturday we wanted to get outside and enjoy the sunshine. We drove to the Miura peninsula (near Yokosuka Navel Base). I had heard about a loop hike you could make so we decided to give it a try. We parked near the foot of a small mountain (actually its the highest mountain on the peninsula - Mt Ogusu) and began our hike. 

In typical Japanese fashion - the trail had stairs that went on forever! 

But the views at the top were lovely and there were some sakura blossoms just starting to come out!

                                Below is a view of Yokosuka Navel Base along the coast.

We hiked down the mountain on a different trail from the one we came up so that we could head for a place called Maedagawa Promenade - its a river walk. Along the way we came upon another tiny park with more sakara blossoms.

Before we made it to the river walk we stopped for lunch. The US Army just lifted the restriction we were under for eating in restaurants. We are again allowed to eat inside a restaurant - as long as its only 50% full. Well, how we control/count that I do not know, but we enjoyed a delicious katsudon lunch!

The river walk along the Maedagawa Promenade was my favorite part of our outing! The course up the river is made up of boardwalk and large stones. The trail went back and forth over the river for about a mile or so. The water level was still quite low but maybe that's for the best. I'm not sure I would have been as brave if it was flowing higher.

As we worked our way to sea level, the last stop on our hike was to Tateishi Park. Its a park along the ocean.  There were some big waves rolling in and we stopped to watch a group of surfers.

The surfers all wore black wetsuits - you can see their heads bobbing in the water if you look at this pic.

The hike from the coast back UP to our car was not that fun. It was a little ways and we had to go through two long car tunnels. The wind was really blowing through the tunnels! And, when we got back near the area where our car was parked, we realized we had to tackle another long set of stairs!

What you see in this picture is seriously only HALF of the total number of stairs. It levels off in the middle so you can't get a picture of the whole set. Its crazy!

All together we figured the loop route was about 7 miles. It was a great day hike with a little bit of everything!