August 2023
My heart beat a little faster as I stood, staring into the dark cave. We were rock hopping up a river (read the start of the story here), and I had found a cave. Everyone else had gone on, so it was just me and my imagination, which was fast becoming my enemy. What if a bear was in that cave? Imagine if its eyes glowed out at me! What if it came out!? I didn’t really want to say hello! I quickly turned and hurried off again before my enemy overtook me. There was a small sandy bank by the river and I noticed animal tracks. I couldn’t resist. I stopped to look. Were those bear prints?? They were kinda small, so maybe a monkey... I didn't stick around to find the answer, but quickly crossed the river and scooted up the rocks after the others.
Scampering across the rocks and scaling boulders, I looked up ahead and there looming on the side of the river was a large and smooth precipice. I stared in awe and imagined high flood waters rushing down and gradually wearing away the mountain side to cut out this curved feature. I was curious to know if it was dirt or rock, so I went over and touched the side. My fingers ran over the hard surface which had rocks in it, but appeared to have dirt as well. I thought I'd be clever and I stood under the edge of the precipice, reached up with my pointer finger and yelled out to my son, Bob, “Look how strong I am!”
“Mum don't! That's scary! Get out from there it might fall!” Oh dear, I wish he had anxiety when he chose to do real dangerous things!
The others had stopped up ahead and were very excited. They had found a very deep waterhole complete with boulders on the side for jumping off. I headed towards them but something else caught my attention: steam. On the side of the river a small tributary met the river. Right at the meeting point there was a large rock and steam was coming out from under it. Wow! Could it be a natural hot spring? That would be SO awesome!! Almost completely ignoring the waterhole excitement I made a beeline for the tributary. The air was cool with spurts of warmth which added to my expectations. A few cobwebs were in my way and I calculated the possibility of going around them. Why do I feel so bad to clear a spider's web?! I grabbed a stick and cleared the way. Close enough to the water I reached down. My fingers touched the water and got a shock. It was freezing!! The water must surely be melted ice!!! It hurt to keep my fingers in! So, where was the warmth?! Then I realised that the steam was only coming out from around the rock, and I was above it. But no matter where I felt the water near the rock it was always freezing, I couldn't understand! Disappointed, I let the mystery be and turned my attention to the waterhole.
It was gorgeous. Deep. Clear. We'd walked long enough that I really needed a dip and this was definitely the place for one! Excited about finally cooling down I stripped off my shirt and then yelped! The kids were all standing on the large boulder excitedly discussing who was jumping in next but my yelp got their attention and they stopped to see what the problem was. I was in a bra, not a bikini!! Thinking it best to divert the attention away from myself I acted all cool, “Oh it's OK, don't worry,” I called out as I waved my hand. And for once they listened to me and went back to organising their jump. They didn't flinch or bat an eye-lid and it seemed I was the only one suprised about seeing a bra! I resolved that bra it would have to be, so in I went. The water was so refreshing, I could feel the heat getting drawn out of my body and washed away.
We enjoyed the water until the kids were shivering and then continued on. I felt a little concerned about them being cold and us continuing on still having to walk all the way back! But Shujin reminded me that we warm up as we walk, and the weather was fine, so on we went. We were feeling thirsty and just up ahead there was water coming out of the side of the mountain. Yes, like the ground couldn’t contain it any longer and was leaking water! It was a natural spring. We drank from it gladly.
As we walked I kept an eye out on all the little sandy banks I came across to check for animal tracks. I saw deer tracks and possibly wild boar tracks. And I saw what I think were bear tracks. The bears in this part of Japan are small and generally omnivores, but when standing up on hind feet they would be as tall as me. I'd prefer not to see one up close!
We walked until we saw a fishermen up ahead and decided we'd best turn around. The way back was much quicker. The march flies had found us and the kids were desperate to get away from them. Actually the flies weren't bothering me much at all, but it looked like a swam around the kids! They scampered over the rocks like mountain goats to try escape from the flies, it was a challenge to keep up with them! The youngest cousin decided he didn't want to wear his life jacket anymore so I took it for him. Bad mistake. The flies came to me like I was lunch. I used the life jacket to swat them away but they were relentless! I was grateful we weren't far from our starting point. We scampered up the river bank and fled to the car. Flies were close on our tail and filled the car! What an attraction we were!
It was all smiles and happy chatter as we said goodbye to our wilderness adventure and made our way back home, windows wide open, showing the march flies out. The last two Sunday’s we’d had big day outs sight seeing. We paid for attractions, ate out at restaurants, bought treats, and all we got back from the children was whinging and complaining. But on this day, we explored our backyard for free with no complaining and whinging and had such a great, enjoyable day! There’s definitely something good about the great outdoors!