Nihon-jin raingear.
Furansu-jin raingear.
by Neil Marston (Photos by Iulia Klotz)
It was set to be a record breaking weekend, about 20 people to wander around the marshes of Oze looking at skunk cabbage and the stunning scenery. Unfortunately, a record number of drop outs in the last week meant that we were only 11 (Paul, Robin, Peter, Bjoern, Bjoern, Iulia, Ralph, Emma, Fabrice, Marc and myself). We started off from Seven-Eleven at 4 o'clock, glad that our leader, Paul, had put back the meeting time from midnight of the previous TWMC trip to Oze - see Victor's account on our www page if you can't go home yet but don't really want to do any work either. Anyway, for future trips, if you stop Paul from navigating, you could save an hour and set off at 5. Yes, the Kanto Plain is not really that interesting at 5 o'clock on Saturday morning but Mito is probaly prettier than Iwaki and Kasama. Anyway, after a rendevous at Kegon Falls in the mist, we set off, in convoy this time, for the start of the walk. One navigation mistake later, this time from Paul II (Ralf) and we arrived full of enthusiasm at an Omiyage shop metropalis.
Boots on retied and checked again then off into the drizzle. The first few km were up a road so not that exciting but I spotted a missing cloud - a patch of blue sky, which never turned into the sun we were promised for the afternoon. Actually, the weather was not too bad for the weekend, overcast but not much rain so I can't complain really, but it's Monday morning and France seem to have a chance of winning Euro2000 so I am not my usual cheerful self.
One snack stop later and the walking really began. Up a small incline through crowd of Japanese tourists - one advantage of the overcast weather was the sartorial resplendence of the Japanese walker the pink over-trousers and yellow gaiter combination was particularly popular. Though personally I think that Byoern's orange walking trousers were more style concious (Camp7 1manen). While you are there you might think about picking up some spring loaded walking poles, which according to the converts are good for bad knees - you don't have bad knees? Have you been on a TWMC walk recently? The hashers bond through giving each other amusing names and drinking beer but on a walk it is essential to have some kind of knee injury to help bond at lunch times.
That is if you haven't some other entertainment, on the first day provided by a German speaking Japanese girl who waited for Iullia to get up before sitting down next to Bjoern to brush up on her German skills. Unfortunately my German is worse than my Japanese so I had to watch as Peter skillfully manouvered his way in there - even getting as far as exchanging meishi, though apparently she couldn't part with her hitech telescopic flag pole.
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Nihon-jin raingear. |
Furansu-jin raingear. |
Off again, thankfully not going the same way as the masses coach loads of tourists who came to look at the skunk cabbage. Also spending considerable time photographing it with an impressive array of tripods and cameras. The rest of the walk was quite pleasent through woodland mostly on duck boards until we ended up at a village composed entirely of omiyage shops and mountain huts which was situated at the edge of the famous Oze marsh. Apparenly this is the highest mountain marsh in Japan and from the photographs I saw, one of the prettiest. Even in the slighly overcast conditions the surrounding mountains provided a stunning backdrop to the marsh.
 Busloads of Japanese hunting Mizubasho in the easily accessible part of the marsh |
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Quite a civilized night, a coffee in the coffee shop followed by a couple of cans of beer or sips of Robin's whisky. Perhaps the most contentious part of the night was Iulia's observation that she thought Robin and Ashleigh looked so similar that they must be related ... well personally I can't see it but since everybody else agreed I suppose I just have to go along with the majority. Eventually we got to sleep after a couple of childish japes and some kind of pillow throwing game between Robin, Fabrice and Paul.
The second day started at 6 with a traditional Japanese breakfast, though I was disappointed not to be given natto. Then off across the marsh admiring the skunk cabbage. At this point, Bjoern and myself decided to take to the high ground to avoid the Japanese tourists leaving the rest of the party to complete the tour of the marsh.
It was quite an eventful detour since we ended
up substantially off the track following streams, crossing a couple
of marshes wading through bamboo to eventually come out across
a marsh just as the main party appeared on the trail to photograph
us looking some what
the worse for wear. Anyway, both groups enjoyed some completely
unspoilt countryside, which was nice though a bit too unusual
an experience in Japan ... but I don't have time to start on about
powerlines and concrete ...
From then on, we retraced our steps from the previous day completing what was an enjoyable weekend of walking. I for one am pencilling in a return to Oze, though maybe in winter on snow shoes.
Thanks to Paul for organising the weekend and everybody else for the company.
Finally, yes, I am not working very hard at the moment, but writing a trip report is less obviously faffing than crawling the web. Also, the more I think about it, the more I have to agree with Iulia!
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by Emma Duncan
when i first met the TWMC in 1998 there were two walks which were already infamous - the north alps trip from which some people were still suffering nightmares, and the oze walk with overnight drives fraught with car problems, rain, and of course the slippery board walks on which paul busted his knee. on hearing these stories at my first TWMC meeting i was determined to conquer both walks before leaving japan.... having survived the north alps last year only oze remained.
so it was with a great deal of satisfaction that i put my name down for the oze hike, my last TWMC hike. i have to admit though, with the official start of the rainy season on friday and a dismal weather forecast for the weekend, it did cross my mind to let oze go as I listened to the rain steadily piss down on friday night. but it wasn't raining when my alarm went off, encouragement enough to get out of bed.
on paul's instructions everyone (fabrice, marc, peter, ralf, robin, bjoern, bjoern, iulia and me) arrived at the 7-11 before 4am...everyone that is except paul and his consort neil. when they eventually arrived some time after 4am we divided up between the cars and set off for nikko. the drive from his apartment to the 7-11 had tired paul out, so i took over the wheel with paul as navigator and neil as back seat driver. fabrice had shot off like a bullet, not to be seen again before nikko, but bjoern and iulia's car followed ours.
it might have been duty which originally kept
bjoern behind us, but after not too long it could only be concern
that without them we would become hopelessly lost on the kanto
plain. paul's skills as navigator did nothing to inspire confidence
in his hike leadership ability....more than once neil or i said
"should we have turned there paul?", causing paul to
hastily flick through the road map exclaiming "this map is
hopeless, the road numbers aren't marked on it" . at one
point while stopped at traffic lights, ralf jumped out of bjoern's
car to check that we were actually following some kind of plan
and several times they had to flash their lights to prompt us
to make the correct turn. eventually however their patience ran
out and they took the sensible route, leaving us to muddle it
out for ourselves. a concern that we would end up doing a walking
tour of the entire nikko national park was not allayed when we
stopped at a
convenience store...after not being able to find the toilet paul
could not, despite living here for over 3 years, even ask in japanese
where it was. strangely, paul's confidence in his own navigation
skills did not diminish and in fact seemed to grow, as he assured
us first that our route was exactly the same length as that usually
taken and then that it was actually shorter and we would arrive
not only first, but in record time.
even more astonishing was his confidence in weather prediction. throughout the trip the rain had varied in intensity between drizzle and heavy, and on the climb up to lake chuzenji the visibility was reduced to only a few metres....but paul's forecast was for a clear and sunny day.
after rendevousing at the kegon falls car park (our car arrived last) we continued on to the trail head, about 45min further on. it turned out that paul's weather predicting skills were far better than his navigation skills...half way around lake chuzenji the rain stopped, the mist suddenly cleared, and we could even see the sun. the official car parks were already full when we arrived at 9am, evidence of the popularity of oze at this time of year.
the first part of the walk was up a road and not so interesting, but once we started on the trail it was a very pretty climb up through the forest to lake oze, with wild azalea and magnolia blooming, and even a patch of blue sky to buoy our spirits. the lake side of the pass was surprisingly deep in snow, with a fair amount of the track still buried.
we stopped at the first village of restaurants and omiyage shops on the lakeside, where we had a good view of the lake and the surrounding mountains. although at this point most of us pulled out at least part of our lunch, it was decided that the official lunch spot would be the next village. this was only about 20min further on, and the track kept to the water's edge giving us very fine views and many sightings of skunk cabbage, the flower of which is famous in oze. having eaten at the unofficial lunch site, most of us were not so hungry at the official lunch. although we had seen many at the unofficial lunch site, at the official lunch site we got our first idea of the vast numbers of oze's most abundant summer mammal..... tourists. the path of the board walks was easily traceable by a continuous stream of brightly dressed middle aged japanese hikers. it was a truly amazing sight. luckily for us most of these hikers were not taking the same route as us, so when we joined the stream it was not long until we took a less crowded path going around the northern side of the lake. this was also very pretty, with good views of the lake and the mountains. at the western end of the lake the trail led over a pass into oze marsh. this also had a lot of snow on the lake side, while the marsh side was, appropriately enough, very muddy. poor fabrice had forgotten his hiking boots and was walking in loafers...his feet looked very soggy.
we arrived at our
hut at 4pm, in plenty of time for a little wander out into the
marsh, a cup of coffee at a coffee shop, and a lounge in the TV
room before dinner. i had a bit of a scare in the toilet of our
hut....having checked the kanji i went into what i believed was
the women's loo. once inside my cubicle i noticed a little rack
of magazine and manga pages....curious, i had a look and discovered
that they were pictures of naked women taken at various angles.
at the same time as i thought "oh no, i've come into the
men's toilet" several people arrived.....not wanting the
entire hut to know that the blonde gaijin women staying that night
had gone to the men's toilet by mistake i waited until the room
was empty before hurriedly making my exit, only to find that i
had gone into the women's after all.
the hut complexes in oze are the most fancy i've seen so far in japan and sell an incredible range of imaginative omiyage. one restaurant we rested at had western toilets with heated seats and bidets, and a little souvenir ticket as well. our hut had the previously unheard of luxury of an onsen....however we couldn't have a bath as the onsen was closed for the weekend to spare the environment from too much soap. our hut also boasted two employees who spoke perfect american waitress english... as i was leaving the cafeteria after breakfast the next day one of them bid me with a sincere smile "come back again". they also thoughtfully checked that we knew how to use chopsticks, what soy sauce was etc etc.
after dinner marc muttered something about a hagen daas vending machine and disappeared outside while the rest of us retired to our room for beer and whiskey before lights out at 9. our group was offered the use of a second room to sleep in, which iulia, peter and i thankfully made use of while the others giggled and crashed around like school boys on camp.
for some reason the japanese hikers were up at 3am, but we rose at the more sensible hour of 6ish for breakfast. the morning was rainy, but actually it wasn't too bad and the visibility was quite good. apart from marc, who cunningly fixed his umbrella between his back and pack so that he was protected from the rain and had his hands free, our wet-weather gear paled in both quantity and colour compared to that of the japanese. none of us had the obligatory anti-bear bell either. neil was going to buy himself one but after inspecting them declared it would be too annoying - though since i have never known neil to pass up a chance of annoying people i suspect it was really the price which put him off.
apart from neil and
one of the bjoerns, who decided to tackle the ridge walk, we spent
the morning circumnavigating the marsh. it was pretty, although
there were not the huge expanses of skunk cabbage which i had
expected. at one point we saw a sign warning of bears...we all
became very quiet hoping to see one but to no avail. walking the
dual carriageway board walks was good practise for my upcoming
move to europe - for some reason the japanese insisted on keeping
to the right. after a mid-morning coffee at the coffee shop we
re-traced our path over the pass to the lake, followed the southern
shore of the lake (where we met up with neil and bjoern who were
walking cross-county across a swamp) back to saturday's unofficial
lunch place for lunch, and then followed the same path as saturday
back to the cars.
although this trip to oze did not meet the inaugral trip's standard in adventure, it was a lovely weekend. oze is well worth visiting if you have the chance. many thanks to paul for organising the walk and for not getting us hopelessly lost in the marsh!
postscript: paul was relegated to back seat driver for the return trip where he sensibly kept his mouth shut (at least as far as directions were concerned)...until we reached nishi odori that is, which he suggested we go straight across instead of turning onto to head south to tsukuba....
