Notsuke-hanto Peninsula野付半島
Hokkaido北海道
Japan's largest sandbank provides for breathtaking sightseeing. Fir trees washed and withered by seawater are glorious sights.
The Notsuke-hanto Peninsula has a strange shape said to be like that of a shrimp's bent back. It is formed by sea currents moving the sand and earth flushed out by the Shibetsu-gawa River. Located in eastern Hokkaido, this expanse of land stretches out like a fine thread between the Nemuro Strait and Notsuke Bay. It is made up of fields and marshes, and at 28 kilometers in length, it is Japan's largest branching sandbank.
On this peninsula can be seen woods of withered trees called Todo-wara (fir straw) Woods. This is the result of fir trees growing on the Notsuke-hanto Peninsula that were washed by seawater until they withered. Their trunks and roots have become like skeletons, and stand exposed in clumps in the green marsh. There are also woods called Mizu-nara (oak trees) and Nara-wara (oak straw), which were formed by trees that had been blown and withered by strong winds till they bent. There is a wooden path there that takes only about 20 minutes to walk along, which makes it easy for visitors to see the woodland.
Near Todo-wara Woods is the Notsuke Peninsula Wild Flower Garden, where many varieties of flowers bloom in summer, such as Japanese bush clover, sweetbrier and the Hokkaido yellow day lily. At the end of Todo-wara Woods is a wharf from which pleasure boats depart for trips around the 1- to 5-meter-deep shallows of Notsuke Bay.
Directions
From Tokyo :
[Air] 1h 45 min from Haneda (Tokyo) to Nemuro-Nakashibetsu Airport, and 30 min from the airport to the peninsula by bus.
