Hell Valley

Hell Valley landscape

Today we planned a day out to Noboribetsu, an area of geothermal activity.  On consulting the weather forecast it looked like a dull overcast day until 3pm and then rain, so we left early, hoping to get there and enjoy the main bits before the rain came down.  The weather forecast was out.  By three hours.  Not great we were soggy messes for most of the day, we didn't have umbrellas (so clumpy to carry around everywhere) or raincoats (boil in the bag scenario) so we just got wet!

Giant demon

Anyhow, back to the start...we got the Super Hokuto to Noboribetsu (an hour and a half) sat next to a Chinese mum and daughter.  Her daughter was 8 and had been collecting stamps from all the tourist spots they had visited, just like us.  We were scrapbooking on the train and mum was impressed.  We had a good chat in broken English and sign language.  For once a nice Chinese family, so often we find the Chinese to be a little arrogant and annoying.  One thing though, she asked if we were American, which is a perfectly acceptable assumption to make when you think about it, however, I felt quite offended (I didn't show it though I hope)  I wonder if I would have been so offended when Obama was in office?  Once we arrived we were greeted by a red demon wielding a club, we saw him a number of times during the day.  He's a bit careless though because we found a number of his discarded clubs all over town.  He seemed to smile a lot though, so don't think he was too bad.  We got a bus up to Noboribetsu Onsen.  Noboribetsu itself looked very drab - another dead town, no shops open, no-one walking on the streets, houses ramshackle.  Certainly there was no money there.  However, as soon as we headed up into the hills, the houses got bigger and cleaner, this was where the money was.

Lake Oyunuma

It was a 15 minute bus ride to Noboribetsu Onsen, which, as usual was full of huge faceless hotels for the onsen crowds.  Our first stop was a convi store to get lunch - picnic today so we got an onigiri each, some pasta salad (for the boy) and inari sushi and set on our way.  You could tell it was going to be a good place because you could smell the sulphur as soon as we got off the bus.  The smell got stronger and stronger and we could see clouds of steam rising above the town.  Yay.  I like places like this - took me back to my travels in New Zealand.

We got to a park where we could hear water spitting and hissing and were greeted by a spout of water shooting up at furious speed.  We didn't dip our hands in it - it was super hot!  We were just getting into the swing of things when we felt a couple of spots of rain on us.  Surely not, it wasn't even 12 o'clock!  Oh yes, the weather forecast had got it wrong AGAIN.  It didn't stop for the rest of our day out.  Oh hum, it wasn't cold, so we just got wet, not cold and wet.

In the hot river

We carried up the road to Jigokudani, Hell Valley, which is a lunar landscape tinged with red, green and yellow with clouds of steam rising above it.  A great sight to take in, Tom couldn't really believe his eyes and was quite excited.  It was strange in that it was just a tiny part of land that had been turned into a lunar landscape, all around it was trees, I guess just that tiny part of the earth is thin enough to let the steam come up.  We walked around taking it in and walked down some decking to a promontory out into the landscape.  We passed over a milky white river and wondered a) how hot it would be and b) how acidic it would be.  One thing was for certain, we weren't going to find out.

We carried on up a hill to a view point where we found a covered area, so sat down and had our picnic in the hope that the rain would get a little lighter.  We were lucky, the rain looked like it was getting lighter, so we put our rubbish in the bin and carried on.  About 2 minutes later it got heavier again.  Oh hum.  We were under the trees so it wasn't too bad, and the boys had their hats which helped a bit.

The river bed

We climbed a hill and then dipped down to Lake Okunoyu and Lake Oyunuma.  They were certainly hot as there was a fog of steam clouding over them.  However, it was teaming down with rain again, but once again we found a shelter so we sat under it for a while hoping it would calm down.  It didn't for quite some time, so we stayed under the shelter, wondering if we were the only people in the area with no umbrella (think we were - these Europeans obviously have NO IDEA when it comes to Hokkaido summers, although from speaking to locals, Matt is getting the impression that this rain is not at all seasonal and probably something to do with global warming and loosing the 4 distinct seasons).

It wasn't a hardship to stop and wait, we were mesmerised by the steam and smell.  When it finally calmed down (i.e. when the rain was no longer bouncing off the ground) we went for a look at the lakes.  Lake Oyunuma's temperature deviates between 50 degrees and 130 degrees (well that's what Tom said he saw on the sign anyway.)  It was certainly hot.  We walked around it and up over a hill to River Oyunuma which fed from the lake.  This is famous in the area for being a hot river.  We were excited to see it so followed it until we saw some steps down into the water.  I went first, WOW the water was hot hot HOT.  Luckily it was really shallow as I think anymore than ankle height would be impossible to bear.  Matt reckoned it was 42-43 degrees, all I know is that it was HOT.  It was fun though, never been in a really hot river before.  We carried on down the river and found a platform to sit down on and dangle legs.  We did this (we were wet through so sitting down in the wet wasn't a problem)  We found however, that the water was shin deep, so we waded up and down in it.  What a joy, it was a couple of degrees cooler than upstream, making it very very pleasant in deed.  There was deep black sand under our feet which was very nice to walk on.  In the end I think we spent a good 20 minutes there just enjoying it.  We were joined by a father and daughter from South Korea towards the end which was nice, had a good chat and they took a decent photo of us all too.

Family dip - it felt fantastic

We then headed back, we stopped off at the hotter spot again for a quick dip of the toes and then headed down a different track back to Hell Valley.  It rained the whole way and we were quite quite wet and bedraggled by the time we got back to civilisation.  It didn't matter though, we weren't cold.    We walked back through town and were debating whether to do an onsen or not.  Matt went to the tourist office to find out how much it would cost and came back bearing 2 umbrellas.  Apparently the town operate a free umbrella loan system, take one for the day and return at any shop, bus station, rail station etc etc.  Typical!!!!!!!!!

Our little demon

Anyhow, he had found an onsen which was on the high street for a reasonable price and as the rain was getting heavier again we decided to head to it.  It was a local onsen - i.e. most of the clientele were locals, mostly old women and men.  Unfortunately there was no shampoo or soap available so we just had to scrub ourselves in the water before heading in the baths.  The baths were cloudy, hot and acidic. So acidic that a 'silver' ring of mine turned black and my engagement ring when from gold to deep copper - opps.  Next time I must remember to take them off!!!!!  There were two big hexagonal baths which were mega hot, a further bath which was slightly cooler, and a much cooler jacuzzi as well as a steam sauna and cold bath.   I had quick dips in the hot baths and then spent a good 15 minutes in the jacuzzi.  Then got dressed (we had the foresight to pack a clean, dry t-shirt each in the morning just in case we got caught out by the rain) and met the boys upstairs.

We then got the bus and train back to Sapporo, nipped upstairs to floor 10 of Esta for a bowl of ramen each before heading back home.

The weather tried to put a damper on us today - but it didn't succeed, it was a good day out, and I guess the weather is now just an anecdote!