F-Day!
Up by 5am to photograph the dawn
then down in the onsen (with waterproof camera) by 5.15am but the onsen was
packed so no photo opportunities. Who would have thought that it would be so
busy so early in the day - especially when it had been so quiet at 6pm?
Finished addressing postcards to
post on top of Mt Fuji and arranged transfers to the station after we do the
Lake Ashi cruise. Fujisama is now hiding behind clouds and you would never even
know there was a mountain there!
We went down the ropeway to the
lake cruise. It was a different ship this time, the green one and had different
pirate statues. There were lots of different boats on the lake, the pirate
ships in varying shapes and colours, jet skis, fishing boats and speed boats.
The funniest thing was near the ferry terminal at the other end of the lake.
There were a heap of small boats with people fishing in them, stationary –
actually anchored in the bay. The people were towed out by a speedboat,
anchored to fish then towed back into shore.
We headed back to the hotel for
our transfer to the station. This would have to have been the best idea of the
day (and a service not widely publicised as most people drive to this onsen or
take a tour bus). The next bus arrived a few minutes after we arrived and the
transfer was smooth – hopefully sign of
things to come.
We arrived at Gotemba in good time
and caught the bus to the 5th station – unfortunately not the one we
were aiming for . we were at Subashi not Kawaguchiko. A nice girl at the
information booth there helped cancel our accommodation on the other side of
the mountain for tomorrow night and booked us some sleeping space in a lodge
for tonight. We left our main packs at the Subashi 5th station
mountain lodge and set off at 3.30pm.
The accommodation booking was good
but meant we had a schedule to keep to or we missed out on the dinner we had
ordered and had to pay for regardless. We walked 15 minutes and then had a 5
minute rest. This was as much to help us acclimatise as to keep us moving at a
good pace and it worked well. We arrived at our accommodation an hour early
(but only because my watch was playing up and had moved itself so it was
running nearly an hour early). Fran had one fall and hurt her wrist a little
but nothing serious. We bunked in what looked like a rustic style capsule hotel
until about 11,15pm then got up, ate tea and headed off in the hope we would
reach the summit by dawn. While we were sleeping the track had become quite
busy and we woke to find about 100 people outside our accommodation all waiting
to go up the mountain.
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