Lost maps, hitchhiking, abandoned temples and apologetic bees

So we made a spur of the moment trip into the wilderness the other day! Yaaaay, the wilderness! I bloody love the wilderness. 

Yes, indeed, very spur of the moment. The night before, as our flatmate Toby was galavanting out the door to fly to Tibet we were bugging him for information about a perky hike and crudely drawing maps on post-it notes. Then we were off to the supermarket at 11pm in search of supplies for our trek . . . into the wilderness! Yay! Going to bed at 1pm wasn't the wisest of choices given our 5am wake up call the next day but hey ho, never mind!

The destination: Mt Takago down in yonder Chiba to the south-east of the Big Toke

Now, this place is well out of the way when it comes to access and that goes doubly when your Japanese skills are tantamount to that of an overtly lazy panda with a learning disorder. We needed to catch a train and then a train and then an elusive bus that came once in a blue moon. However, our good friend Keiko did some research and it turned out said bus had been discontinued and thus our route was changed at the very last minute.

Lost maps and hitchhiking

And so, to slash a tedious story perky, we found ourself in Matsuoka - which incidentally could easily be labelled "The-ass-end-of-where." Luckily the folk in The-ass-end-of-where are extremely friendly and even took the time to draw us a map which would guide us the 11 or so kilometers we needed to walk to find the hike - and yes, I did say 11 bloody kilometers. We walked though and as we did, the rain joined us and somehow our map of where the hike was and how to find it fell out of my safe-like pocket. Luckily it was at the exact moment our efforts at hitchhiking came to fruition and a lovely couple from . . . Japan, gave us a lift to the beginning of the park. Top notch adventure so far. Now bring on the formality of the tramp!

Abandoned temples

We made it! To the tramp. Seriously, by this stage we felt we had triumphed in the most important part of our journey and that was finding the route in the middle of nowhere in a place called Toyofusa. We cracked on after a quick coffee - would you believe they even have vending machines that sell heated coffee in the middle of nowhere? Yes, yes you would - it's bloody Japan innit. The forest was beautiful and it proved to be a really great testing ground for the stability of my leg which had been operated on about six months earlier. The muddy, up and down terrain tested it's ability to hold firm and it passed with flying colours. The sound of the forest was beautiful and a welcome change from the bustle of busy Shibuya. We only hiked 3km, but it was a tricky 3km given the terrain and the rain - and anyway, the real pay off wasn't doing a long hike it was staying in an abandoned temple we had heard legend of. We found it.

We approached a large rock, like an outcrop, among the forest and trees and realised a sizable hole had been hewn through it with a steep stair descending onto a small green carpet of grass. Beyond was the Mt Takago Kannon sculpted into the cliff face. It over looked a magnificent valley with hills and mountains bubbling off into the distance. Wonderfully, almost the moment we got there the light rain cleared out and the sun broke through to illuminate the valley stretching off into the distance. It was divine. Amazingly there was a tiny dribble of water of the cliff face that made a very small pool for washing hands etc. Imagine my surprise when I spotted two fresh water crabs in there. The temple itself is a dedication to Kannon, the goddess of mercy. Inside a somewhat restored, yet abandoned temple was a couple of log chairs, a demonesque face carving, a picture from what we deduced to be the late 70s, a whole bunch of scribbling on the walls from hikers now as immortal as the statue of Kannon herself which stood at the back of the temple looking out the door at the magnificence of nature. It was really special. The kind of place you read about . . .  on blogs . . .

Apologetic bees

We sat and enjoyed our lunch on the step of the temple and as I did I realised the bees in Japan are very . . . apologetic. Usually, my experience of bees when it comes to picnics, is they pester and piss you off buzzing around looking for sweet things. These Japanese bees seemed to come along, see you, then say "Oops, sorry, didn't see you there, I'll move along." Very bizarre and then as we descended from the temple to the waterfall down the track and I mean down (like devil's staircase down) I noticed most of the wildlife in Japan doesn't pester or annoy. Which is bloody good when you need to stay the night in an abandoned temple with no doors to speak of. 

Dinner and dusk

We forgot the bloody sausages didn't we. But we made do with our delicious tinfoiledkumara, carrots and mushrooms. With a side of bread and some fire boiled mint tea we had a feast over a game of chess - how civilized. We fell asleep to the sound of the rain on the roof. Amazingly, weren't hounded my mosquitos or any other insect-like foes and we slept trough the night peacefully - another fine example of the conscientious nature of Japanese wildlife. 

Return to the Tokester

Alas, it must all come to an end and after a brekky of rice, tinned coffee heated over a fire and bananas we were off through the rain back to civilization - and stopped short, with a scratch of the head and a mental prolapse due to the incomprehensible bus stop. We ended up hitchhiking with the first person that drove past our eager thumb. They were a lovely couple on their way back from the hospital. She had hurt her leg dancing with children. More interestingly, the bloke spent a year in NZ 20 years earlier and thus we had loads to talk about. His chuckle and mentioning of "windy Wellington" and his love of Hokey Pokey ice cream let us know that he fully understood NZ as a culture and a country. Six hours later I was back at work with the trip to Mt Takago and glowing memory.