My first weekend in Takatsuki, Osaka! I had plans to go into Osaka city on Sunday, so on Saturday I decided to get into nature and try out some hiking! I walked about an hour to a hiking area that was suggested on Trip Advisor for a waterfall. It is in the Settsukyo (摂津峡) Mountain Park.
It was warm, so I took my time and lots of water. Armed with a map of Takatsuki, sunglasses and a hat plus some water and off I went! I decided to follow a direct route, which took me down a very narrow rarely used road. It generally had forest on one side and farms on the other. A few small Japanese style baby trucks, some cyclists and walkers were all I saw. A small walk-way up a path intrigued me so I explored – it had a small reservoir and I saw a turtle paddling about! My first sign of nature! Yay!
The farms were growing all sorts of things, mostly tomatoes, potatoes, and onions. Many fields looked prepared for planting, but I`m not sure what will be planted.
The road itself looked a little like it could lead to a magical place of mystery – I was reminded of the famous Hayao Miyazaki Japanese animation movie Spirited Away (千と千尋のかみかくし) where Chihiro enters a magical land after wandering away from a small road her parents were driving down to move to their new house in a new part of Japan.
I came across many greenhouses covered in thick plastic sheets, but the most surprising was one with the hugest aloe vera plant I`ve ever seen! It was massive.
I ended up in a more urban area for the second half of my walk and saw a funky tree beside a near religious building – I`m still not sure if it’s a temple or a shrine, but it`s certainly beautiful, and the tree I find just so unique – I think perhaps it’s a large bonsai tree that somebody forgot to keep cutting! 🙂
I finally got to the final road to my destination – Settsukyo Street. The park is known for fireflies and frogs – of course they weren`t around when I was walking there as it was daytime, but I learned this from the funky artwork on the sidewalk.
I entered the park and found a children`s play area which was fun and quite neat – I tried out the zipline, of course! Found a sign for the Valley of Maples (one of my schools in Hokkaido was Maple Mountain, so I knew the word for maple trees) and off I went. I`d been warned of wild boars and black millipedes that are crazy poisonous and had on my trusty birks, so I was admittedly a little cautious! Didn`t see anybody and hiked for about an hour until I came to a view point – wow! My city is quite large, but I didn`t know. And the rest of the view was mountains! Amazing…..
