Shimokita · HigashidoriNo.1294★★Open in map →
Cape Shiriyazaki
— Lighthouse and grazing horses at Honshu's north-east tip
The north-east tip of Honshu, on the corner of the Shimokita Peninsula. A white brick lighthouse stands on the point, and Kandachime horses graze the open grass around it in the months the cape gate is open.
- FromShimokita Station
- ~40 min by carCar, or the village's booked taxi
- Get off atShiriyazaki Lighthouse (mugeto booked taxi)
- From there
- Cape Shiriyazaki
The sweet spot
This is one of the best-known sights in Shimokita, so it is not a hidden corner. What shapes a visit is access. The cape road closes at night and through the winter, and without a car the public link is a shared taxi you book by the day before.
Where it is
34 more notes in Aomori · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- Shiriyazaki gatethe gate on the cape road that sets the opening hours for the whole headland
- Kandachime grazing landopen grass around the point where the horses graze, sometimes standing on the road itself
- Honshu's Farthest Point markera stone near the tip inscribed as the far end of Honshu
- Shiriyazaki Lighthousethe white brick tower, with a viewing deck over the strait and the Pacific
- Rocky shorereef stepping down into deeper water, where the two currents meet
How to actually get there
- Shimokita Station (JR Ominato Line) → central Mutsu by Shimokita Kotsu bus or taxi.
- Lawson Mutsu Yanagimachi 1-chome car park → Shiriyazaki Lighthouse by the booked taxi mugeto, reserved by the afternoon before.
- Walk the tip: the Honshu's Farthest Point marker, the lighthouse, then the rocky shore.
- Return on the booked afternoon run to the Lawson car park, then on to Shimokita Station.
- Shimokita Station, then the booked taxi
- From Shimokita Station on the JR Ominato Line the cape is about 40 minutes by car. Without a car, take a Shimokita Kotsu bus or a taxi into central Mutsu, then the village's booked shared taxi, mugeto, to Shiriyazaki Lighthouse. It currently boards in a corner of the Lawson Mutsu Yanagimachi 1-chome car park, and it only runs when someone has booked it.
- Back from the lighthouse
- Book the return run at the same time as the outward one. The taxi brings you back to the same Lawson car park, and buses and taxis connect from central Mutsu to Shimokita Station. Only a few runs a day go as far as the lighthouse, so settle the return before you set out.
About the place
Shiriyazaki is the cape at the north-east corner of the Shimokita Peninsula. The Tsugaru Strait lies to the north and the Pacific to the east. The two waters meet off its rocks, and sailors long feared the point as a place where ships ran aground. The lighthouse at the tip is a white brick tower 32.82 metres high, the tallest brick lighthouse in Japan. Around it lies open grassland where the Kandachime, a hardy working horse bred on this coast, graze through the warmer months. The horses and their habitat are a natural monument of Aomori Prefecture. The cape road is gated, so the whole headland keeps the village's hours.
How to enjoy it
Watch the horses from a few paces back rather than walking up to them; they live on the gated grazing land and are best left to it. Spring is foaling season, so mares and young foals may be grazing side by side. If you want to climb the lighthouse, aim for the morning or afternoon session, because visits pause for an hour at midday.
Background & history
The lighthouse was first lit in 1876 to a design by Richard Henry Brunton, the British engineer known as the father of Japan's lighthouses, and it is the oldest Western-style lighthouse in Tohoku. Japan's first fog bell was fitted here, and then the country's first fog horn. War damage put the light out, it was restored after the war, and in 2022 it was designated an Important Cultural Property. The horses descend from Tanabu horses kept out all year on this coast, later crossed with the Breton breed. They were simply called loose horses until 1970, when a local school principal named them Kandachime in a New Year poem.
Before you go
- Cash
- Entry through the cape gate is free. Climbing the lighthouse asks a donation from visitors of junior-high age and up, collected by the Tokokai. The booked taxi takes cash or its own coupon tickets, paid when you get on or off.
- Good to know
- The cape gate opens 8:00–15:45 in April and 7:00–16:45 from May to November, and stays shut from 1 December to 31 March. Lighthouse visits follow a separate season set each year by the Tokokai, from mid-April to 8 November in 2026, and stop on announced days and in bad weather. Through the closed months the horses move to a winter pasture called Ataka.
- Another way
- By car, Prefectural Route 6 leads from central Mutsu out toward the cape, and a village road continues to the lighthouse. If you would rather not depend on the shared taxi, Shimokita Tourism also runs a chartered service called Gururin TAXI.
- After you get off
- The booked taxi's lighthouse run ends at Shiriyazaki Lighthouse itself. The marker stone and the rocky shore are around the tip, a short walk away, and the grazing land spreads back along the road you came in on.