I felt mean waking Emily at 6.15, as she had not been herself the day before (the NHS booklet says that the measles vaccine starts to work after about 10 days and can result in tiredness and loss of appetite). She was fine though, and happy when she realised that Daddy was around. Having done much preparation the night before I wasn't too stressed about packing, though the cab had to wait a few minutes nonetheless. We were soon at Takeshiba boat terminal, and joined the many people checking in. It wasn't long before we were seated aboard an alarmingly bobbing jetfoil and I felt my hurriedly-eaten cereal sloshing around uncomfortably.
The two hour boat ride was great; you get a real sense of speed in one of those things, and we rapidly passed under Rainbow Bridge, past the ranks of idle container cranes and beneath planes taking off and landing at Haneda airport. There was plenty to see most of the time, as we crossed from beyond Yokohama to Tateyama, on the Boso peninsula. Out in the busy shipping lanes we spotted lots of super-cargo boats, and entering Tateyama harbour we passed a few grey naval frigates, one with a chopper parked at the rear.
Approaching our destination, Oshima (meaning 'big island': it's the largest of a group of seven), we saw another jetfoil coming in to intersect our path, and to see it speeding over the waves with a great plume of spray spewing out behind it made it exciting to know we were in a similar craft.
Docking at Motomachi jetty, we found ourselves in the metaphorical shadow of the island's 745m central volcano, Mount Mihara; though in reality it was a bright warm morning. Emily had refused to nap onboard and was a bit tetchy about being confined to the seats (it was much like being on an aircraft as we had to remain buckled up as we 'flew' along at more than 70km/hr), but she revived when we got off and let her walk a bit. Transport on the approx 4x10 mile island is very limited so we opted to wait an hour for the courtesy bus to our hotel. The drive was only 15 minutes, winding gradually up and up closer to the peak, during which time Emily finally dropped off, on my shoulder.
We found Oshima Onsen Hotel to be superbly situated on an outer caldera ridge, with a two mile uninterrupted view across to the mountain, and on the other side sea views - on a clear day the Izu peninsula and Mount Fuji would be visible. We were amazed that it was the only building up there, but even more surprising, given its great location,was its shabbiness: it seemed like a factory unit from the outside, and a Sixties throwback in its internal decor. Nick pointed out that it would be foolish to lavish too much money on something so close to an active volcano, but I'm sure they could do better than that.
We ate a rather mediocre lunch then wasted no time in setting forth for the mountain's summit. It looked so far off that we couldn't believe it was only billed as 65 minutes and 3km, but actually we made it to the crater in 55 minutes. From the hotel we first dropped down through the green vegetation of the ridge, then passed through an area of black sand studded with dry grass clumps. That was followed by a tangled jumble of black, gnarled lava stacks, some looking like animals and one with a strong likeness to a Virgin Mary statue.
After that we began quite a steep climb, made tougher by the path's loose rocks. As we rounded the last corner a cold blast assailed us and had us reaching for hats and gloves. I was glad I'd packed Emily's padded all-in-one.
Attaining the crater's edge we decided that we had plenty of time to make the circuit of the rim before returning, and set off in the lea of the first outcrop, which had all the time been steaming like a newly-deposited pile of dung.
The centre of the crater was very deep and had vertical sides.
Poor Emily had few chances to walk
as the going was so rough and rocky, so she got quite upset, leading me to feel upset too and somewhat guilty that we were doing the walk to please ourselves without taking her needs into account. We found it getting very cold as the late afternoon sun sank into cloud, and hurried back to the hotel as fast as we could on the treacherous footing, with Emily crying nearly all the way back.
Once checked in and settled into our room she cheered up and was laughing a lot. It was fairly small but fine for three futons, and had a fabulous view from the big window, taking in the whole mountain and foreground. We managed to get her routine finished quickly and had her asleep by 6.20, enabling us to spend plenty of time on dinner (just as well, since we knew that at 8pm we would be persona non-grata in the dining room). After the poor lunch we were pleasantly surprised by the evening meal. We got to cook our own tempura vegetables and fish, with a gas-powered dish of oil on our table to fry the batter-dipped pieces in. We found out afterwards that it was 10% camellia oil, this being a product that the island is famed for. In fact early spring sees the tsubaki matsuri (camellia festival) and there are reputed to be three million (not sure if that is blooms or bushes).
Afterwards we took it in turns to use the natural hot spring bath while the other sat in the lobby listening in to the baby monitor. It was quite spartan in the tiled indoor bath, but I braved the icy wind to step out to the more attractive rotemburo bath. Even though it was dark I could see Mount Mihara by the light of the near-full moon and countless stars. It is quite magical to lie outside in hot water at night and gaze at the heavens, but without someone to share it with it loses something.
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