Last weekend Rachael had the weekend off work, so we went for a drive down to see the Stanthorpe and Granite Belt Region. We stayed at Sommerville Valley Tourist Park which is on Storm King Dam. They had kayak’s you could take out and we are keen to go back in Summer when the water is less freezing.
On the way we did the fruit run tourist drive and had a look at some of the wineries.
Over the Easter weekend we went on a 2-day hike in Lamington National Park with our roommate and some of his friends. It was my first time camping where you have to carry everything with you, and can’t just drive to the camp site. This meant we put a lot of thought into what to bring, and took a lot less gear then normal. Ultimately this led to a much less pleasant camping experience as no swag meant for a very uncomfortable sleep, and we didn’t have hot food.
Rachael had last weekend off work so we went to the Bunya Mountains to camp. The drive up was pretty good, we stopped at Acland (a ghost town) on the way, and closer to the mountains we saw an echidna on the side of the road.
We had lunch at the main “The Bunyas” restaurant which was good, but not great. There was tonnes of awesome rainforest walks from here, which is where the main campsite is.
So leaving Hakuba we got the same local train back towards Matsumoto. From there we went to Nagoya where we got to catch our first Shinkansen (bullet train) to Osaka. It wasn’t as fast as I was expecting (250km/h) and was much the same as the ICE train we got in Germany.
Our first day in Osaka, we went to Kyoto as told in the other post. Before heading back to the hotel we went to one of the shopping centres and on one floor they had Pokémon Centre.
So we were finally off to Hakuba to enjoy the snow that had caused so much dramas. We got an early-ish train from Shinjuku but then had to wait for 2 hours at Shinanoomachi Station for the local train to Hakuba. When we did get to Hakuba we couldn’t find any taxi’s but luckily the hotel was happy to come and pick us all up when we called them. The Hakuba High Mount Hotel where we stayed was awesome like that, they had a free shuttle down and back to the Sakka lift every day as well (only a few minute drive).
So when we were talking to Jackson and Bully at the pub, they told us of how they had seen a sad bear while out snowboarding in one of the further out runs. I didn’t know that Japan had bears so was pretty impressed. Apparently they thought it was a goat at first, but when they got closer decided it was a sad bear. This caused Rachael to freak out a little bit that we would run into a bear and she would be mauled.
So our original snow monkey tour was rescheduled to the last day of our stay in Hakuba due to the heavy snow, so we were really lucky we even got to go. It’s a shame because the first part of the bus tour as we were leaving our guide gave an overview of all the different ski resorts and which one was good for different things, something that would have been more useful at the start.
So I’ll jump a head a little bit and talk about our day trip to Tokyo. From Hakuba we got a bullet train to Osaka where we were staying, but the following day we did a day trip to Kyoto while our JR pass was still valid.
First up, we went to Fushimi Inari-taisha a temple built for the Shintu god of rice, Inari. It started out a bit disappointing, as it was much like the other temples we had been to… but then it just kept going.
So after our horrible start, things were much better being out of airport and in the city. We stayed at the Shinjuku Washington Hotel, which was fairly close to the train station and in a good area. The rooms were quite small but had everything you needed, and there was a good view out the window of the government building and the snow-covered streets.
The first morning we went to garden nearby and everyone made snowballs and Sarah made a mini snowman.
So our trip to Japan had a terrible start. Well, it started out fine in Australia. In a crazy chance of coincidence we were seated behind a few Ergon guys I know from Townsville. Waiting at Cairns airport they taught me how to play pirate dice, which was a fun way to kill time while we waited.
The flight itself was okay for Jetstar. I had low expectations and they were basically met.
