Today I woke up early around 7am to catch a bus to the forest.
I arrived yesterday on Yakushima Island. Straight from the ferry I had an hour ride bus to where I'll stay the next 3 nights, a very lovely place witha fantastic view on the mountains and the ocean.
Here you need to have a car or to take the bus, this is a big Island! Like all Island there is a main road going around. there is two bus to go there, one to go and one to come back! This forest is up the mountain.
In the bus, driving along this narrow and tortuous road, you can already feel the nature surrounding you... Your leaving the civilization. It start to rain! While watching the rain pattern on the bus windows, I'm remembering my host telling me that it will rain haha and offering me an umbrella which I declined because I thought I had a good raincoat!!! Haha what a mistake! Always listen to Island peoples...always...they knows!
I like these ride on the bus, this is quite jumpy and funny, im thinking about the bus driver taking this road twice a day, certainly very used to this magnificent forest! Does he still enjoy it?
The bus is stopping! This is here!
Under the rain, I'm entering the fog of the forest following the track.
The good think with this weather conditions is that not much people like to hike under the rain. I choosed the long track 2h30 and very quickly while entering the forest the voice of the other stopped. I'm alone listening to the sound of the water hitting the tree leaves anf dripping. Ploc ploc ploc ... Then a very loud water noise...
A river ? Deeper I go in this forest and more I'm attracted to it! These old gigantic trees, the unique shape of every of it... The young tree which hopefully will become as tall as the old one.
It's raining more and more but the trees are offering me a shelter... Keep walking I arrived to the river! There is a suspended bridge that you need to cross.
The mist is everywhere now, I can distinguish some very unusual shapes, big shapes of the olders, still and imposing, there are wispering to each other. Certainly used to see some humans quite often but always surprise.
The track is changing, it's made of tree roots, I'm really feeling alone in this forest, surrounded by nature and mist. I'm soak now, haha ! Really miss this umbrella!
I'm thinking about the time when humans didn't have any bus or car, what trip it should have been going through this forest, climbing this mountain! They certainly didn't forget the umbrella!
Every step, every look at this forest is a unique one. Every tree got an unusual shape, somehow still and alive. Some look dead laying on there side, but you can see young trees growing in it! Like the old one were rejuvenating. This is incredible. I keep walking climbing, Ive lost track of time now, surrounded by this majestic world. Now that I think about it, I didn't cross the path of any animals, except a monkey, no birds, no squirrel, even no insects and no totoro...
There were an empty trunk which was a good shelter for a while when it rain very hard, I sat inside and watch the sky thought the hole. Maybe a cousin of totoro tree.
Here and now... In a wild forest with elder trees, I feel happy, I'm thinking that so far I didn't care that much about nature, don't get me wrong I like it and always respect it, of course, but I never felt that connected.
Being here is putting things in a different perspective. Maybe this trip is putting things in different perspective too.
