Sunday, November 13th …..

It’s been a quiet weekend, one way or another. Jamie has gone with a female friend to the V8 Supercars meeting at Simmons Plains. He packed a picnic and went off with a spring in his step. This is the sort of thing Marilyn and I did before we were married. I remember going to Eastern Creek and Oran Park. Marilyn would pack a picnic and we would enjoy the time in the sun. Jack Brabham and Stirling Moss were among the top drivers of the era and there was another English driver called Hill. My aged brain won’t give me his first name; I’m sure it wasn’t Benny, but I can’t think who it was.

One day, I do remember, the bonnet of one of the cars shot into the air and just missed going in to the crowd. What a disaster that would have been. The other thing I remember clearly is all the boy racers who zoomed down the road after the races were finished, emulating their heroes and showing off their prowess to their girl-friends. All except me, of course: I was always careful and considerate of other drivers on the road.

I have a meeting tomorrow with the Craft Fair secretary. She has dropped the bombshell that she may not be able to do the job next year. She and her husband have just taken over the family farm and there are periods during the year (such as September) when there’s just too much work on the farm, without Craft fair as well. My plan is to talk her around and make whatever concessions I can. Marilyn has offered to be Assistant Secretary, picking up the slack where she can and this might be a solution.

I spend most of today working on a plan for a holiday in Japan. We’re always promising ourselves another holiday in Japan so I revisit this idea from time to time. We’ve been to Japan a couple of times and have seen a lot of the usual tourist traps so the plan this time is to focus on a relatively small area in Central Japan called Chubu.

We will fly into Nagoya and base ourselves there while we do day trips to out-of-the-way places. We will have a rail pass and will use the trains as much as possible. On Day 1, we will go to Toyama on the north coast and take a local train to Tateyama for the start of the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route. This mountain journey takes us by various modes of transport: cable cars, ropeways, trolley buses, ordinary buses, through tunnels and so on, ending up at Matsumoto where we will get our train back to Nagoya. We will be up as high as 2450m and the highlight of the trip is a drive through walls of snow up to 17m high. Unbelievable!

Another day we will go to Takayama one of the most beautiful small cities in Japan. It’s an easy 2 ½ hour trip each way from Nagoya. As well, we plan to visit two small villages on the Nakasendo, the overland road between Kyoto and Tokyo which was used by travellers in the Edo period, after 1600. The two villages, Tsumago and Magome have been restored and are in their original condition. There are no cars, TV sets or any sign of modern life.

Well, that will take up 3 days of our Rail Passes and there are still 4 to go. Clearly, I need to do some more research.