For only the second time in 2025 we've gone camping. There has literally been no other time where the weather, vacation time, and our personal location have all matched up. We struck a pretty awesome week for it too. It wasn't too hot or too cold. The main snag wasn't too big: it rained for several hours on our second day, the first and third days were magnificent. The fourth day, our pack-up-and-return-home day, rain threatened, and so we got up earlier than planned and were putting our last things in the cars a bit after 8am when the rain started.
First day:
I was really looking forward to driving away from Tokyo. It's always amazing as the city fades away and the mountains get closer. That's different to Australia (the mountains bit).
Japan is really quite a thin country! It took us only about four hours to drive to the west coast from, about 270km. Also a massive contrast from Australia (it's about 20 times as far to drive across our vast nation).
Getting close to our campsite on the west coast.
We were set up not too long before the sun went down around 5pm and look at the show we got! It's not common that we've had a good view of the sun setting while camping in Japan, so this was a real treat. We had no neighbours and an uninterrupted view of the sunset.
We enjoyed American chilli and corn chips with "choc banana boats" for dessert that were cooked over the coals. I slept really well that night.
This little guy watched up set up.
Day two:
The sky was grey and rain threatened, so we went for a walk after breakfast while the weather was still okay.
It was a good thing we did, because the rain came down after lunch and remained until well into the evening. We enjoyed quiet reading time and then played card games in the "common" area. I completely whipped everyone in Uno Flip, a game that is 95% luck and so my kids will tell me I don't get much credit for that!
Dinner was chicken kebabs on sticks and s'mores for dessert. I was awake for a couple of hours in the middle of the night—it was very peaceful, but more sleep would have been welcome!
Day three:
We awoke to a gorgeous blue sky and warm sun . . . in fact most of the day it was too hot to stay in the tent. We went walking along the beach (two of our friends went for a 20k bike ride), and whiled away the rest of the day by reading and talking.
Somehow we when we're relaxing, we end up using more Australian words and continue, after nearly 10 years, to find more Australian words our US friends don't know. One I used this was was "skerick". It is in the Merriam-Webster dictionary (a key US dictionary), but labelled as "Australian".
Large spider!
That night we enjoyed another gorgeous sunset.
Day four: we moved fairly steadily from getting up to leaving, so i didn't take any more photos, but on the journey home I did grab a short video of the entrance to one of Japan's longest mountain road tunnels: Kan-etsu Tunnel. It's just over 11 km long. On a previous camping trip we've driven under Tokyo Bay in that long tunnel, despite feeling longer, it's just under 10 km.
I've come home feeling relaxed, but tired. It was good to relax, but not a long enough break to be very refreshed. I was back at my desk today—it was amazing how many emails came in during the six days since I last looked at my computer!
Now, typically, we're looking forward to our next camping trip. If it comes off next spring, it will be our 10-year anniversary trip with our camping friends!
We were set up not too long before the sun went down around 5pm and look at the show we got! It's not common that we've had a good view of the sun setting while camping in Japan, so this was a real treat. We had no neighbours and an uninterrupted view of the sunset.
We awoke to a gorgeous blue sky and warm sun . . . in fact most of the day it was too hot to stay in the tent. We went walking along the beach (two of our friends went for a 20k bike ride), and whiled away the rest of the day by reading and talking.
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