Isle Of Cats

Our alarm was set for 04:55 this morning... to look out east and see the sunrise over Jodogahama Beach, we're unlikely to see a view quite like this again. The sun took about 15 minutes to rise high enough to appear through a gap in the clouds but it was worth it.

Despite the sun being out and blue skies, we had to move on, we were on a do or die mission now. On Monday we had to abandon our plans then due to bad weather but we'd considered trying again today, however it was a drive south then north again afterwards, and the weather there was not guaranteed. It was supposed to be a surprise but we decided to tell Ms H to see her reaction... Cat Island... on Tashirojima Island, famous for hundreds of cats... she was well aware of it and her response was... can we try to do it.

So off we went, checking twitter every 5 minutes to see if there were any changes to their schedule... they had warned of that last night due to high winds and waves. We arrived at the port at 11:45, ferry was 12:30 and the schedule was on. Mrs C decided last minute not to do it as she suffers terribly from sea sickness, so just Ms H and I. The crossing was indeed extremely choppy, forwards backwards leftwards rightwards... and quite fun. It took an hour to get there and the return ferry was 2 hours later... so us, and several other groups headed onto the island hunting for cats. 

Well... they were on the pier already, we headed for the restaurant there and within a few minutes, Ms H had one curled up in her lap, one curled up under her knees and 2 lying beside her, while 2 came to me. This made Ms H very happy and effectively, goal achieved. But we had more to see, so pulled ourselves away.... we passed a point where the tsunami level was recorded which was about my height. We headed up the hill and reached a souvenir shop where we counted almost 50 cats and then more appeared. We eventually reached the Cat Shrine and found 2 there then headed back to the boat seeing all the cats we'd seen on the way so obviously had to stop again. The return ferry arrived on time and off we went back to meet Mrs C who had been to the tsunami school museum I blipped on Monday and enjoyed that. She would have hated the boat.

We were immediately on the road to Morioka, about as far as we were at the beginning of the day, to drop the car off (we did 800+ miles on this leg) and get the train to Hakodate, about a 2 hour trip. Hakodate is on a different island at the far north, Hokkaido. The shinkansen goes through an under the sea tunnel... 100 metres deeper than the sea bed and the sea is 140m deep, so 240 METRES below sea level!!! That's 787 feet BELOW THE SEA!!! OMG!! The Seikan Tunnel is 33 miles long and is the longest undersea tunnel in the world, and the 2nd deepest. It took about 20 minutes for that section and we watched the depth increase and decrease on our watches as we went. A quick change of train to catch another train and we were in our hotel by 22:30.

It all worked out today, but we were worrying about getting stuck on the island or not getting the car to the drop off, or missing the train to Hakodate. It's a relief it worked out, the thought of Ms H returning home missing Cat Island would have nagged us for a long time. We're beginning the wind down of our trip now, no rushing about, we'll be home in a week, but still lots to see.