Yufuin - bless you!

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Day 16 ...

After a　delightful lie in - we walked into town to check out what Yufuin had to offer. The town is smallish insize and nestled in the mountains of the south island - we found a great street of odd and interesting shops and walking along managed to have a taster of a range of snacks and sweets. Mmmmm. At the end of the street we found a small lake where we watched some local boys fishing - they can't have been very good though as in the 45 minutes we were there they didn't catch a single one and there were so many in there you could probably just have reached in and grabbed one.

After pottering around the town we made the trek back uphill to our hostel to spend the rest of the day drinking tea and reading, a worthy rest. The hotel is right up on the mountainside but well worth the climb as the views from the windows are breathtaking.

Day 17...

We got up early and got a lift to town for our first organised trip to Aso-san, a massive volcano. Many years ago there was a huge eruption which left a crater with 128km circumference and inside this now are train - lines, towns etc. Also inside this larger crater are several smaller volcanos one of which is live - this is the one we were going to visit - excited wasn't the word!

With the coach fully loaded with fireproof suits and breathing apparatus for the volcano's noxious gases (well not really - just the biggest apple you have ever seen for lunch and our GORE-TEXs incase it got cold and wet!) we made our way out of Yufuin for our adrenalin fuelled trip. Our first thrilling stop was the extremely dangerous...Kuju flower gardens. Not quite what we'd been expecting but a fantastic sight none-the-less, and also a great excuse to sample some fab ice-cream.

Jumping　back on to the coach we were finally Aso-san bound for the highlight of the trip. On the way over we could clearly see the rim of the large crater which was a wicked sight. We stopped first at the town of Aso (built within the massive crater and in the shadow of the live volcano - nutters!) for a loo stop for those suffering from last minute volcano nerves. On arrival at the volcano we all (4 of the huge party of 6 on our 52 seater bus!) went to queue up for the cable car up to the crater, knees shaking in case of a suuden eruption...only to find that the ropeway was closed for the afternoon due to the wind whipping up the noxious gases too much for visitors to see the crater. What a disapointment after all that aniticipation! Feeling a little gutted we went to a little plateau down the road where our feelings were compounded by the smallest sandwich in the world - it wasn't really any bigger than the picture on the menu had been! Despite the disapointment of not actually seeing the crater in action, it had been a great day. We finished the day with an onsen, lovely.

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