Thursday 27th April, 2017

Tokyo to Nikko  (324 kms)

Headed north out of Tokyo in drizzing rain with all eyes looking for road signs so we didn't accidently take a wrong exit and end up on an Expressway which would take us in the wrong direction.

First stop for the day was the private Wakui Museum, a large collection of Rolls Royce and Bentley cars through the decades (with much of the collection for sale). Coffee, biscuits and chocolates by the locals were welcome.

Walking back to the car two Morgan Club members from our drive to Oiso in March were there to greet us.

With snow on the distant mountains we drove 112 kms to the very modern Hara Museum and Art Gallery set in a large garden with indoor and outdoor exhibits. One spectactular exhibit was the yellow room with black dots where you walk up a few steps, look through a window onto a mirror reflecting hundreds of yellow pumpkins (the same ones as at Naoshima Island but much smaller). Lunch was a Bento box.

Leaving the lunch stop we climbed steadily from 500 to 1,400 mts up the side of an old volcano and descended to the lake which fills the crater. At one point we drove 53 hair pin bends in 10 kms.

Two Regularities were straight forward and we did fairly well on both.

At the end of the first regularity we drove on a "musical road". As you drive along it the changes in the surface played an old Japanese childrens' tune "The Rabbit and the Turtle". 

Our hotel for the night was overlooking Lake Chuzenji - a scenic lake in the mountains above Nikko, at the foot of Mount Nantai.