Volcano Spotting

  Mount Aso, Japan
Sunday, November 5, 2006

When Jim first suggested a day hiking near an active volcano, I have to admit I was slightly sceptical, just how "active" is active and how much hiking was involved? His assurances that we'd be catching a cable car to the summit and walking down allayed my fears somewhat, but reading the casualty and death statistics in the guidebook did add an extra frisson of danger to the experience.

01 The house we stayed in - Aso-no Fumato

We arrived in the nearby town late on Saturday afternoon and started talking to the only other westerner on the train as we made it towards the Tourist Information office. We hadn't booked any accommodation and he was asking us how easy we were finding it travelling around and which guide book we were using. We told him he had the latest edition of the Lonely Planet, but felt it necessary to supplement it with another book as quite frankly it was often found wanting. We carried on chatting and only after about 10 minutes of us both bad-mouthing the LP, did he admit that he was researching the next edition and was in the area on a three week fact-finding trip!

19 Moon's up

It could have been extremely embarrassing, but he hadn't been responsible for the last edition so felt no need to defend its obvious faults - he agreed it was sometimes found wanting; and so, as we ended up sleeping in the same home stay as Lonely Planet Man, he spent quite a bit of time picking our brains.

09 View of the craters from the top of Naka-dake

Aso is not a kicking town - with no real night-life to speak of so after a soak in the wonderful community onsen (hot spring) and some conveyor-belt sushi we turned in for an early night at the farmhouse B&B we were staying in. Getting up the next morning was quite hard as the temperature had dropped quite significantly and so venturing out from underneath the duvet wasn't easy. But we made it and caught a bus up to the area around the volcano.

After a picnic breakfast and a relatively gentle up hill climb to our first viewing point, we set off to walk to the cable car. When we got there we noticed that we were probably the only people under 55 - a big pensioners tour group was jostling for position. Four minutes later we were at the rim -

07 Naka-dake volcano

the first thing we both saw (before we walked to the viewing platform proper), were the pebble-dashed concrete bunkers erected in the 1950s for people to shelter in, in the event of the volcano "misbehaving"!

The view looking down into the cauldron of vivid turquoise liquid and gases was extraordinary - I've never seen a live volcano before and it wasn't quite how I'd pictured it, but beautiful and intriguing. After gawping for as long as we dared - there are lots of multilingual signs warning of the effects of the sulphurous toxic gases - we set off to walk around the rim to the other side. It took us nearly two hours - lots of it scrambling up loose rocks and boulders, but the views of the surrounding countryside and strange rock formations were worth it.

15 The cable car down!

We would have called it a day there once we'd caught the second cable car down the other side, but there weren't any buses or taxis to be had so we ended up marching the remaining hour and three quarters back to Aso station. Our aching bones could really have done with a soak in the baths, but unfortunately there was only time for a quick bite to eat before we jumped on the train. A great day walking - but we've both been feeling the effects since!