Kajigamori

Kajigamori is not a place that will easily show up on a map of Shikoku. It's very much up in the mountains, out of the way. I was trying to find somewhere for us to stop for a night or two as we travelled east to west across Shikoku that broke up our journey nicely. It was much harder than it sounded. We revised these travel plans again and again trying to figure out the best way to do it, and what we ended up with definitely had it's flaws. It was an ongoing battle of how much can we do without pushing ourselves too hard. I tried to take advice from others and the internet, but a lot of it you never know just how it's going to turn out. 

We left Takamatsu with a pretty full day of driving ahead. If we drove straight to the mountains, it was going to take between two and a half and three hours. So we picked some spots along the route to stop at and break up the journey. We knew Rachel was not great with long distance car trips, even with motion sickness tablets ready, and the driving in Japan wasn't a walk in the park for Steve either. 

The day turned out to be actually great. Our first stop was a Pokemon themed park featuring Slowpoke, which is the Pokemon mascot for Takamatsu. It was pretty funny to be at the park with all the little kids, but it was obvious too that people were coming for the photos and then leaving. 

We continued on into the mountains where we stopped at a few different lookouts. The day was so clear and the green mountains with the ice blue rivers in the gorges was stunning. Completely different from the endless city, concrete jungle that is Tokyo. I had made onigiri for our lunch so we didn't have to stress out about food. 

The busiest place we stopped at was the Ira Valley, where there is a big rope bridge across the gorge. It was so popular with the tourists it had a huge carpark and line to cross over too. We didn't end up going over the bridge, since we'd done one at Shikoku Village. 

We did go down to the water to cool off and have a splash. There were a stack of people there "swimming" around. Most of the Japanese people had inflatable rings to float on and their kids had all sorts of safety vests even though the water was not particularly deep. Obviously being in a gorge is different from at the beach, but everyone also had reef shoes on, or just wore their sandals into the water. We were the odd tourists out going in barefoot. 

Also the odd tourists out just being foreign looking. Everyone else was a Japanese tourist. The waterfall there was also lovely and we had a nice afternoon snack - Rachel got kakigoori, Sophie and Steve had ice cream, I had some grilled soy sauce mochi. Delicious!

Then we drove on again to Kajigamori. Google maps said it was about an hour from where we were, which was fine, but about ten minutes into the drive, we turned onto a very different kind of road. It wasn't unsealed, but it was very much one lane, no gutters, lots of pot holes and rocks across the road. It was super wind-y, most of the time with curve-y mirrors to help you see the oncoming traffic. We were only nine kms away, but it did take us the full 45/50 minutes to drive it. Steve was exhausted at the end and I don't blame him. 

The view when we fell out of the car was magical, but it had been an effort to get there for sure. We checked into our accomodation, which was a little room with shared bathrooms attached to an observatory.  We had some very delicious sukiyaki for dinner that night. 

And we got to go see the big telescope and look at the stars. Just being on the mountain and away from all the city lights ment we saw so many stars, but the telescope was a plus as well. I was a little daunted when I realised they would explain all of it in Japanese (again, we were the only foreign tourists, everyone else was Japanese). I did not know how I would go trying to translate for Steve and the girls given my lack of star knowledge in English let alone Japanese!

I was surprised with how much I could understand and translate for them, though my appreciation for the hard job it is to listen and translate simultaneously has increased tenfold from the experience. After looking through the telescope, we all went out and looked at the stars in the carpark. It was beautiful and actually cool for a change! Honestly, the summer weather had be just long hot days with no nighttime relief, so for it to get below 20 was a shock. 

The next day we thought we'd try doing one of the walks around the top of the mountain, down to a waterfall and back. Before breakfast Rachel and I went for a wander around but it was tricky to find the trail. It looked like it was going to be another over grown trail situation like I had had on Shodoshima. 

We did attempt the trail together, but it got a bit scrambl-y and hard to see where to go next. Even though the map said it was an average trail, it definitely required more experience and gear than we had. We were again, particularly worried about Steve and his hand, since he wouldn't be able to use it to balance scrambling down or to get back up again. 

So instead, we went back, jumped in the car and drove to the top of the mountain. The view was pretty average from there, though there were Pokemon to catch. We could see our observatory too. 

It was pretty disappointing to be on such a beautiful mountain, surrounded by nature but kind of unable to get into it. Steve was reticent to do any more driving than we needed to on the tricky mountain road, which was completely understandable. 

We ended up sending the girls back to the room and we did a 15min walk through the foliage to "Lovers Walk". It was really only manageable because we both had long pants on. Can you even see the path in the photo below? It's there.... somewhere! 

At some parts going through it the greenery around us was up to our waist. I can't believe it's actually considered a trail and on a map. The view at the lookout was stunning though, so that was nice. 

I guess it turns out, we should have only had one night at this place, and gone on the next day. Wasn't much we could do about it at the time though. I hope I'm not giving everyone the impression that we were sad for lots of our travel time, but I do want to genuinely share that it wasn't all smooth sailing. I think too we/I felt the pressure of everyone telling us to "make the most of it" and actually wanting to do that, but sometimes making the most of it is realising you are not equipped for a hike down the mountain and you just need to retreat to your room and teach your daughters Big Bertha for the afternoon. 

So that's what we did. Along with lots of reflecting about how things were different to what we expected and what we could do differently next time. I wonder if we've learnt... maybe. This traveling thing is hard work! 

The mountain lodge had a guitar in the common space in the foyer, so the girls and I took it outside that evening before dinner to have a sing on the mountain top. The girls were a little uncharacteristically enthusiastic about singing in public (even though there was barely anyone around), but they were delighted at our karaoke session. 

That was a beautiful experience as the sun went down over the mountains around us. We lay on the yoga mats in the carpark again that night and appreciated the starry sky and I saw my first shooting star. Net positive from our stay in the mountains, and onto a new place the next day.