Sometimes don't you just wake up in the morning and think to yourself, 'Well, I just fancy taking a cablecar up a volcano today.'? And you perk up your appendages and trot off into the ring of fire. In sandals.
Not recently? It's funny how these things just happen once in a while to us. There I was, dozing in bed one minute, and swinging from high tensile steel cable with 20 other people the next. I managed to get to the top dignity intact (no mean feat as anyone who knows my fear of artificial heights and abominable contraptions will testify). We wandered along the pretty paths and through sulphurous vapours, around lakes and past spectacular viewpoints. There were clouds of red dragonflies and swathes of deep blue wild flowers. The mountain peak stood bright and dominating for a while before coiling vapours around itself and skulking like a gorilla trying to hide behind a teapot.
The glassy corrie lakes and puffy white clouds played together nicely for a while before quarreling and sending the lakes into a grey huff and the clouds streaming behind mama mountain. There was a steady snake of people trailing up the distant angle to be lost in the swirl to the peak. We fought temptation to join the happy throng on their 5 hour climb on the 2 in1 gradient and made a graceful descent to be collected by a lovely couple and conveyed in impecunious style back to Asahidake.