Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
kawa Town and near the public reservoir, which is also a park. There are signs leading tourists
to this next attraction, the Goeda-no matsu tree (
五枝の松
).
For an admirer of trees, the Goeda-no matsu (
goeda
means “five-branched” and
matsu
is
“pine”) is truly a spectacular sight. It's simply enormous, spreading outward in all directions
from its original central trunk in a radius of 25-40 feet (8 to 12 meters). Over time some
of its branches bent to the earth from their own weight and took root, thus becoming new
trunks. Although an everyday event for a banyan, this is unusual for a pine. The Goeda-no
Pine presently has five main trunks and is still growing. Perhaps in another 200 years it will
be twice its present size. Under healthy conditions Japanese black pines may live a very, very
long time. We may not see it 200 years from today, but maybe our great-great-great-grand-
children will, should they visit here. I hope mine will.
From either the Uezu House or the great pine tree it's about 1.75 miles (3 kilometers)
southwest to the coast and our first chance for a beach break, for all along this stretch of
shore there are sandy sections eventually leading to the more than 0.75-mile (1-kilometer)-
long Shinri Beach (
シンリビーチ
; Shinri bīchi). Mentioned earlier, the Cypress Resort Hotel
occupies the far western section of Shinri Beach but all of it is open to the public. It's a safe
beach as this entire section of coast is fronted by a natural barrier reef. It breaks up the waves
and shelters the shoreline. It's not a particularly good snorkeling beach but it's a good one for
children and not so strong swimmers.
From Shinri Beach or the Cypress Hotel it's about 1.25 miles (2 kilometers) further north-
west to Kume's Airport. Mentioned earlier in this section on the islands west of Okinawa-
hontō, this modern airport has several flights a day to Naha and in summer direct flights to
Tokyo's Haneda Airport. It's very convenient.
The airport occupies the far westernmost tip of Kumejima, so from here it's only east that
we can go, east and a bit north. If you follow the road through the long avenue of windswept
pine trees, in a little over three-quarters of a mile (1 kilometer) you'll come to a tiny village,
Kitahara (
北原
; lit. “North Field”). It's really just a collection of one or two shops, a number
of private residences and a very elegant but small Shinto shrine on the right-hand side of the
road.
