As expected, now I have tons of free time and no pressure, I'm not getting around to writing anything. Anyway, back to where we left off, about a month ago:
The ride to Kagoshima was miserable and terrifying in equal measure. We set off from Miyazaki around 3am to be there on time for the ferry so it was dark and none too warm. Two thirds of the way there the drizzle turned to rain and mist and visibility dropped to almost nothing. Riding double on a small bike at 40kp/h, cold, wet and peering through a misted visor isn't fun.
The four hour ferry crossing gave us time to dry off though, and a quick circuit of the island confirmed that beautiful scenery, monkeys and mountains were present in abundance.
千尋の滝: For those of you that can read Japanese, that's 'Senpiro', not 'Chihiro', but the name certainly caught my eye! Lucky it did, otherwise we would have missed out on the view...
The guesthouse was a funny little place with a grumpy husband in residence, watching his comedy show and grumbling at any distractions, like guests.
Shiratani Unsuikyo was gorgeous. Said to have inspired the scenery for Mononoke Hime it's a ravine, logged 1,000 and again about 400 years ago. In those days the massive stumps were too impractical to use, and most trees were cut at least a metre from the ground, leaving the root network intact. The sugi wood doesn't rot, so most stumps remain today, covered in moss and 2nd or 3rd generation trees. The whole place is so green! Shame our crappy camera doesn't like the green spectrum, but I did my best to capture the feel:
Our goal was 太鼓岩 (drum rock), and the view, right:
I love the intertwining root networks found everywhere, below right:
There was no room in the guesthouse for a second night, so we moved to another. The slightly batty owner (49) and her incredibly friendly daughter (30) gave us a warm welcome, a conch shell and candy. In the evening we ate and drank together, the owner got drunk, huggy and weepy and her boyfriend gave me a beautiful wooden trinket. He crafts wood for a living, and had somehow got hold of 'toraboku', the wood from a ancient sugi tree swelling. The 'tiger stripes' refract light differently depending on the viewing angle. Excellent.
The next day, overriding my protests, Hozumi chose to try the #1 popular trial on the island, the eight hour hike to see the 'Jomon Sugi', the oldest tree of it's kind(?) estimated at 3000-7000 years old. I wasn't keen, as I'd heard the first and last two hours were nothing but endless logging tracks in single file. Turns out I was right, but the perilous river crossings and the three hours in-between made up for it. Pictured are one such crossing, the famous heart outline viewed from inside Wilson's stump and the Jomon Sugi itself.
The ride to Kagoshima was miserable and terrifying in equal measure. We set off from Miyazaki around 3am to be there on time for the ferry so it was dark and none too warm. Two thirds of the way there the drizzle turned to rain and mist and visibility dropped to almost nothing. Riding double on a small bike at 40kp/h, cold, wet and peering through a misted visor isn't fun.
The four hour ferry crossing gave us time to dry off though, and a quick circuit of the island confirmed that beautiful scenery, monkeys and mountains were present in abundance.
The guesthouse was a funny little place with a grumpy husband in residence, watching his comedy show and grumbling at any distractions, like guests.
Shiratani Unsuikyo was gorgeous. Said to have inspired the scenery for Mononoke Hime it's a ravine, logged 1,000 and again about 400 years ago. In those days the massive stumps were too impractical to use, and most trees were cut at least a metre from the ground, leaving the root network intact. The sugi wood doesn't rot, so most stumps remain today, covered in moss and 2nd or 3rd generation trees. The whole place is so green! Shame our crappy camera doesn't like the green spectrum, but I did my best to capture the feel:
I love the intertwining root networks found everywhere, below right:
There was no room in the guesthouse for a second night, so we moved to another. The slightly batty owner (49) and her incredibly friendly daughter (30) gave us a warm welcome, a conch shell and candy. In the evening we ate and drank together, the owner got drunk, huggy and weepy and her boyfriend gave me a beautiful wooden trinket. He crafts wood for a living, and had somehow got hold of 'toraboku', the wood from a ancient sugi tree swelling. The 'tiger stripes' refract light differently depending on the viewing angle. Excellent.
The next day, overriding my protests, Hozumi chose to try the #1 popular trial on the island, the eight hour hike to see the 'Jomon Sugi', the oldest tree of it's kind(?) estimated at 3000-7000 years old. I wasn't keen, as I'd heard the first and last two hours were nothing but endless logging tracks in single file. Turns out I was right, but the perilous river crossings and the three hours in-between made up for it. Pictured are one such crossing, the famous heart outline viewed from inside Wilson's stump and the Jomon Sugi itself.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment