On Thursday we travelled from Matsumoto to Toyama.  The easy route on the new Shinkansen from Nagano to Toyama taking 46 minutes was an option, but we decided to take the scenic route which took eight hours+.  Crazy?…. No.  Japan is all about endless discovery.

Long way to Toyama

Prior to our holiday we thought, ah this will have fantastic views of the Japanese Alps… It’s summer the weather will be warmer and the skies clear – perfect! Well not quite. As you can see from the picture below, it was a little foggy…

The other feature of the journey is the eight different types of transport you take along the route. But I will leave that to Kym.

The below photo of the Kurobe Dam (after climbing 220+ stairs) was just before the rain pour down and our ponchos being used. We couldn’t see the mountains, but the view of the dam was pretty impressive, as it is in the time of high pressure discharge.  

As you can see it as a little rainy…

When we got to Murodo, it wasn’t raining (hooray!) so we knew we needed to take advantage of the weather, and did the Mikurigaike pond loop walk.  Here is Kym enjoying the walk- 

… And here is Kym towards the end of the walk. Yes as you can see it is wet, and cold! Endless discovery, regardless of weather!