Day 17 Kushiro, Japan

This is our last day in Japan before we start heading towards Alaska.  We will have four days at sea and we are looking forward to this as it has been go, go, go so far.  We only had one day at sea out of the last fourteen days and that is very unusual.

So that brings us to todays tour - Kushiro Wetland and Crane Reserve.  First up was the wetland.  This was a very strange tour as we walked along a boardwalk for around three kilometres and didn't see a single thing of interest.  Somebody on the tour joked that we needed to come back in the spring when the wetlands would be alive with birds.  Anyway, it was a good work-out!

 The Japanese Crane Reserve was much more interesting.  The reserve was opened in 1958 with the release of five cranes with the aim of protecting and propagating this endangered species.  In the early days there was not a lot of knowledge surrounding the crane and it took almost ten years before the first chick was hatched. It is pleasing to see that the Japanese Crane numbers in Hokkaido have increased from less than 200 in 1965 to almost 1500 in 2013.  We were lucky enough to see a chick that had been recently hatched.  They are a dirty brown colour at birth before they develop their distinctive white and black colouring.

You can only just see the chick to the right of the pair.

When we arrived back at the ship we went for a short walk around the port area.  This is one of the better ports with many restaurants and shops close by.  We didn't have enough time to really explore unfortunately but managed to get a couple of photos.