Most things on a trip like this are planned but then the unexpected can happen. Namely, because either you didn’t do your homework or as time goes on you get more confident ( read – over confident).

So the plan to go in to rural Japan was scuppered after booking a hire car in Japan ( tick) that you must have an International driving licence for ( yes, tick, can get on-line) but …in Japan the licence application must be issued by your home country ( oh, cross) oh, and no cancellation policy for the hire car (double cross). Oh dear, well, put this behind you, move on….

Every cloud,nevertheless, has a silver lining. The plan to drive to Totsukawa is now replaced by two train journeys, followed by a three hour local bus journey that will stop, no less, than 67 places on route.

Arriving unscathed at Totskawa 7 hours later I wanted to read about the journey of the number 310 bus. Only to discover that, in part, we had taken a special ‘express'( rich word) bus called the Yagi Shingu Express bus. The longest local bus route in Japan. A total journey of six and half hours, 167 km and 167 bus stops! And ,critically it stays off the main roads so a lifeline to the small villages on route ( one bus stop had 3 houses and a cow shed) and doubles up as a sightseeing tour. The reason there was a constant run of Japanese for the 3 hours on route…

An epic trip it was, but not as I had expected. The two hour bendy road through a steeply sided long valley seemed to be one mega civil engineering project. I suspect a new road, water and dam project, so scenic was replaced by tree clearing and gigantic pile drilling to stop the hillsides falling on to the road in event of earthquakes or immense typhoon rains. Empty hillsides had huge crosses of metal at regular intervals to stop the ground from slipping. It all looked like a huge noughts and crosses board, but without the noughts.

Not the rural Japan I had expected, but after that extra bit of effort now we have now arrived in the hot spring heaven, the village of Totsukawa. I am expecting that river valley to fill with more rain water tomorrow but, will don the waterproofs and get out in to the wild.