Pete had heard about an amazing road , famous among bikers ( from one of his snowboard students who was a biker) but it happened to be on Kyushu – the third huge island making up Japan. So we took another bullet train an hour and a half south to Fukuoka where we collected another hire car at the airport.
Without much of a plan, apart from getting out of the city, we headed to the Chikuzenmachi Tachiari Peace Memorial Museum on what used to be an airfield. What was so special about that airfield is that is one of the places where they trained kamikaze pilots. It started as a tactic if you’d been hit that you’d then try to ram the enemy, but once Japan were losing and their planes were not in the best shape, they started to train pilots with kamikaze tactics as their sole mission. They were so young!!!
Next, we drove to the Mount Aso Kuju National Park area. Mount Aso is an active volcano that last erupted in 2016. The resulting flooding caused huge impact to the area and we saw some amazing new bridges to replace those that were ruined, damaged and totally wrecked by the activity.
I had a bright idea (Janet) that as we were near we should visit the Koganotaki Falls. Hmm I’d seen impressive photos of these falls but obviously not in April!
We stayed in a surpringly large hotel (they must get lots of tour buses) and made use of the hotel’s own onsen. It had an indoor and outdoor area in both the men’s and women’s onsens. It was lovely to hear cicadas and frogs 🐸 through the night. The next morning, we set off to see Mount Aso and after a peek in the crater decided to walk the crater rim- well Pete did once he realised it entailed a vertical scramble up a hillside, not just a boring walk.
The view was better but I wanted the ultimate view – from a helicopter.
As the cloud had cleared, we’d seen the helicopter trips commence. It was a fab 4 minutes up, round the volcano, a really steep banked turn by the chopper (think roller coaster ) to get back – done! It was the best 4 minutes of the trip! (editor’s note, apart from JaPow, food, people, driving, culture, bullet trains etc 😉 )
So finally we drove the famous, twisty Yamanami highway which snaked itself through the mountains, at times surrounded by stepped small fields. Pete was quite enjoying himself apart from our hire car was “like a pram” and the power button “only made more noise but no more power” etc etc. It also beeped every time you crossed the middle line – making “hot lines” a tad irritating on the twisty roads.
We drove down into Yufuin, not quite sure what else was there apart from a hotel we found on Agoda. The hotel was lovely with a gorgeous enclosed garden. We ate our breakfast there after our morning onsen in the outdoor private onsen. There were no showers in the rooms so we did as the Japanese do and waddled down in our supplied slippers and robe (yukata), headed into the onsen then showered there.
The next morning, Yufuin surprised us. We were just round the corner from the small but beautiful Kinrin Lake. There were quite a few Japanese tourists but with it being early and a weekday, still quiet enough to enjoy. I can imagine the small streets and tourist tack shops must get chocca at peak times.
We continued on the Yamanami highway towards Beppu. The landscape around the Yufudake mountain were very dramatic. You could just imagine the massive boulders coming down the volcano side in the lava!
Next, Pete took us on a magical mystery tour to the Hasama Yufu River Gorge. It turned out to be pretty spectacular and had a waterfall with almost as much water as mine had. The wonders of nature are just amazing!
We called it a day 12km short of Fukuoko in a place called Futsukaichi. The hotel was very originally called the Green Hotel, and not for its eco-friendly approach. It was lit green. It was pretty basic but did the job and we found a nice ramen shop round the corner. A good night’s sleep was had once we cooled the place with the air conditioning – first time needed this trip. It had shown 27 degrees in the day!
And then off to the airport for a 2 hour flight South to one of the smaller Okinawan Islands called Ishigaki. Alarmingly, there is a Club Med there, but we are not going to work a summer season. Just do some snorkelling and chill before returning home.
