Brown Bears!

Not exactly the sign you want to see when about to enter said nature trail. Especially when alone and equipped with neither whistle, bell nor radio. I considered going to ask the staff at the visitors centre for advice, but decided that my newly found ability to tell them my brothers' birthdays and that my dad's hobby is golf, while pretty impressive, probably wouldn't help much in this situation. As I stood at the mouth of the trail contemplating my next move, two 'salarymen' emerged, followed soon after by a couple with a baby in a buggy. None had the air of a person who has just survived a close encounter with a brown bear, and so, somewhat gingerly, I went in....

It was my day off, and once again, I had come out to the Kushiro marshlands. As you may recall from previous post, this is an area of protected wetlands roughly the size of Tokyo, and habitat of the Tancho (Japanese red crested crane). The nature walk I was about to embark on comprises a 2.5km circle trail built from wooden decking. The foliage is pretty dense and vast. The first 800 metres I walked without seeing a soul, and as I went along, whistling every 5 seconds, I found my mind wandering to contemplate how long it would be before anyone realised I'd been mauled by a bear and that the warning notice really could have given a little bit of advice on what to do should you actually do spot one?

At the first observation point, the trail branches off and leads down towards the site of an old railway track. This is now used as a hiking trail connecting to the Onnenai visitors Centre 3 km away. I was pretty keen on trying the hike, but as I set out, I was suddenly hit with the certainty that this was perfect brown bear territory, and I maybe wasn't quite up for a 3km hike in the wilderness, and so turned back to the relative safety of the wooden decking. Wouldn't have had time to hike out there and back before the return bus anyway. Back following the circle, I gradually began to come across more tourists. The first group were ringing away on their bear bell, but I subsequently came across a few maverick lone walkers.

At the halfway point, was the 'satellite lookout' which gave a great view out over the marshlands. I got some good photos (which I'm going to stick on bebo), and also managed to strike up a conversation with 2 girls from Tokyo. I finally emerged after just over 2 hours, and no, I never did see a bear....

For info on Kushiro marsh/ tancho cranes - http://web-japan.org/atlas/nature/nat16.html