Good morning,
After 37 consecutive rainy days in Tokyo, we are in that delightful phase of autumn: cloudless skies, no wind, cool mornings, with very few bouts of sudden heat, as if to remind us of previous Octobers and make us grateful for the one we have.
If one could set aside the increasingly troubling real reasons behind this unusual weather pattern, I enjoyed this strange summer in Tokyo, where the rain disregarded its usual mid-July exit date and stayed with us, with a few short breaks, until early October.
After many gruelingly humid summers, it was nice not to have the entire summer structured around surviving the humidity and the daily commute to work, and to avoid developing that little grudge against this city that I otherwise adore and that deserves none of it.
I now hope the sunshine stays with us for a while to accompany the fall colors season, already at its peak in higher-altitude regions - the topic of last month’s letter that zigzagged the country to introduce some of my favorite foliage spots in chronological peak-foliage order.
This month’s letter, though, betrays the premise of this newsletter and takes a rare break from Japan for a land known for its glorious coastlines, sunny beaches, intimidating sharks (and crocodiles), and frequent sightings of gorgeous humpback whales during their migration season: Australia.
More specifically, Western Australia, where I spent a week in late September during the region's wildflower season to walk some sections1 of the Cape to Cape Trail, the 130-kilometer route that runs along the coast, connecting Cape Naturaliste in the north with Cape Leeuwin in the south.
After hiking the Great Ocean Walk in Victoria a few years earlier, another well-known Australian coastal hike that I always remember lovingly as the best hike of my life, I was looking for a similar experience in the country: a non-technical trail, with extensive coastal views, and a charming small town or two to base myself in during and after the hike.
And on the Cape to Cape Trail, I certainly found much more than I was looking for, in both wonderful and unexpectedly challenging ways.
Scenery-wise, the trail turned out to be much more beautiful than I expected. It made me grateful for that element of surprise, which somehow survived the pre-trip overexposure that came from browsing hundreds of photos and videos while planning the trip.
With the wildflower season in full swing, the rocky coastal scenery was softened with the warmth brought on by a band of wildflowers led by yellow hibbertia, pink pimelea, and brilliant purple pigface (I of course looked all these up through Google image search - my flower vocabulary is otherwise limited to two words: rose and dandelion).
At times, the experience felt like walking through a botanic park, albeit an intentionally wildly curated one, with dense displays of flowers on both sides of the narrow trail. But the most exciting moments came when those flowers, in the most saturated colors possible, popped up unexpectedly along the sand dunes or between giant rocks, adding a welcome contrast to sections of the trail that strangely felt desert-like, despite the ocean’s constant presence.