Tired off my old backyard Miura peninsula, I packed up a sandwitch bag, tied up my hiking boots and set off to a bit of real countryside. That is, countryside so far removed as to be outside the range of the automatic ticket machines, and where you actually have to buy a paper train ticket from the conductor.
大野山 is a nice-sized hill about 2 hours West of Yokohama, and is famous for the view of Mt. Fuji from the top, the green pastures, and black and white cows.
The track is a pleasant 2 hours walking from he train station to the top, along beautiful forest tracks and small countryside roads. Wildlife was everywhere, with blue-tailed skinks darting into the undergrowth, huge lazy butterflies flitting around, large spotty-legged daddy-long-legs gracefuly meandering amidst the tree roots and, the paths being quite frequented, the giant spiders and even more humongous sticky webs were mainained at a safe distance from average head hight.
Nearly to the top, a small carved rabbit kindly informs visitors we have now reached 634m, the height of the Sky Tree, the tallest building in Japan.
And out you pop from the forests, into open pastures of knee-high lush grass and armies of red and blue libellula (or what wikipedia tells me are commonly called skimmers).
The view over the southern-most South Alps, to the North and East,
and over the plains surrounding Sagami Bay was breathtaking.
And there were, indeed, some black and white cows, although, like any sensible animal, they were engaged in a midday nap when I passed by.
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