LOOKING UP THROUGH THE JUNGLE AT THE OLD AQUEDUCT WHERE IT CROSSES A VALLEY OF ABANDONED RICE PADDIES NEAR HEDO POINT

After the locals gave me some conflicting reports about whether or not the WATER BRIDGE portion of the old aqueduct still existed, I decided to go into the jungles and find it myself.

Bad idea.

After several attempts to find the exact location, and a suitable entry point close enough, the confusing mass of thick, near-impenetrable, snake-filled jungle, combined with a completely new lay-of-the land due to new roads and re-grading of some surrounding farms, I became as disoriented as a kid in a House of Mirrors.

AN OLD FARMER TO THE RESCUE

Straggling back to the Hedo Village General Store, the proprietress told me to watch the place as she headed off to find a farmer who could help me. About ten minutes later, she returned with MR. MASAHARU ISHIHARA (who drove up in his tractor), who looked at me like I was crazy, and asked, "You wanna see WHAT ??? "

It turns out that that decades had passed since anyone had entered the jungles there, and the last time he himself had to crawl down in there for some reason had been well over thirty years ago.

Within ten minutes, we had entered a forbidding jungle, where all former trails had been overgrown and obliterated.

As he slowly cut through the thick masses of vines, he casually mentioned that, just an hour earlier, he had killed two HABU --- Okinawa's deadly pit-viper. "Ahhh, they weren't that big... only about 4 feet long...."

Even as he spoke, I found myself caught up in a mass of jungle vines so thick, I felt like a fly caught in a spider's web.

Eventually breaking free, and going deeper into the jungle, the relative darkness seemed to have prevented smaller growth from taking over. In the absence of direct sunlight, the "Jungle" became more like a thick "Forest" that then gave way to flat, stepped areas, and a fern-covered floor.

THE PAST REVEALED

We were on some ancient, stepped rice paddies, the remnants of an agricultural way of life that no longer exists on Okinawa.

And rising up amongst the 50-year-old stand of forest trees that had grown up since the old aqueduct was abandoned, were the mighty concrete pillars of the old aqueduct.

Looking up, the water-way that once brought life to almost 400 acres of rice-lands was still there, laid across the top of the pillars.

My guide said, "I used to walk across this as a kid. We'd go looking for Papaya and other fruits up in the mountains".

This remark echoed the same comments I had heard from others in the community, and a conversation followed that was filled with the farmer's reminisces of life in HEDO VILLAGE back in the days when America owned the island.

LEAVING THE AQUEDUCT BEHIND

I took a bunch of 2-D and 3-D photos (only a few of which I'm posting here --- good enough to give you an idea of the place), then headed back to the General Store with my Guide, where he hopped on his tractor and headed off to his sugar cane fields.

Later that day, I found myself at the History Department of the KUNIGAMA TOWNSHIP OFFICE, showing them my photos, and begging them to survey the site, make repairs where needed, clear the undergrowth while preserving massive trees, clean and restore a portion of the rice paddies and their old stone walls made of the ancient Karst rock, provide safe access for history buffs, erect a descriptive historical marker, throw in a picnic table or two, call it the WATER BRIDGE PARK (Sui-Kyou En), and preserve it all for the future.

Feeling fully confident that all of that will NEVER happen, I got in my car, headed down the road, and felt more like INDY JONES than I'd ever felt like in my entire life.

Cheers !

アキダクトアクウダクト廃墟水路用水路導水管辺戸水路水橋辺戸水橋辺戸用水路宜名真水路宜名真用水路宜名真辺戸水路宜名真辺戸用水路辺戸宜名真国頭国頭村沖縄沖縄県

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Taken on: March 1, 2016

Tags:

Aqueduct

Ginama-Hedo Aqueduct

Ginama

Hedo

1950s

1960s

Abandoned

Relic

Ruins

Jungle

Water-Way

Water-Bridge

Sui-Kyuo

Hedo Village

Kunigami-son

Kunigami Township

Kunigami District

Near Hedo Point

Near Cape Hedo

Civil Engineering

Concrete

Trestle

Bridge

Okinawa

Okinawa-Ken

Japan

アキダクト

アクウダクト

廃墟

水路

用水路

導水管

辺戸水路

水橋

辺戸水橋

辺戸用水路

宜名真水路

宜名真用水路

宜名真辺戸水路

宜名真辺戸用水路

辺戸

宜名真

国頭

国頭村

沖縄

沖縄県 « less

Sets appears in: • OKINAWA ! • ENGINEERING on OKINAWA more » • BRIDGES on OKINAWA • THE GINAMA-HEDO AQUEDUCT • HEDO POINT & VICINITY « less

Groups appears in: • Okinawa Explored

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