We had only just emerged from the tunnel when I sighted one of the numerous station platforms along the route, but there was a substantial difference this time around. The platform was lined with a massed tour party busily clicking away as the train approached, and clambering aboard once we'd ground to a halt. They were obviously aboard for the most scenic section of the route, which took the train slowly across a couple of bridges.
They were gone again a few stops further down the track, and there were a couple of instances where the train stopped to set down the odd passenger one assumes came aboard at Kakunodate.
Along the way we passed Ani-Matagi, one of the top hundred stations in Tohoku, where there’s a bear pasture, Utto Onsen Matagi no Yu resort, Yasu-no-taki Falls, reputed to be the second most beautiful waterfall in Japan, and the Matagi Museum, detailing the history of the bear hunters of north Japan.
The population was thinned out considerably there and we seemed to be well into the uplands, following a broad river valley. Once the tour party and the onsen set were gone there was a noticeable change in the coloured leaves that I'm inclined to ascribe to a preponderance of evergreens rather than deciduous species, and the last leg into Takanosu took us across a broad expanse of upland paddy fields.
Overall it was another spectacular tick in the box or Madam's research skills, and comments from people she'd spoken to on the train suggested we'd managed to lob there on the very best day. Given my own lack of experience with seasonal leaves I'm inclined to take their word for it.
Once we disembarked in Takanosu there was a small matter of two and a half hours to kill, and the research skills kicked in once again. Three streets down from the station, a right hand turn takes you onto a quiet back street with a rather good French restaurant that operates under the moniker of Boire un coup.
Of course we were there for lunch, which doesn't marry well with full a la carte and an extensive wine list, but there were two plats du jour, a chicken confit and a tomato-based pasta marinara, both of which were quite delicious, and we managed to down a Chardonnay and a Cabernet, both from the Languedoc, and both good varietal examples of wine from varieties not usually associated with the region.