On the night of April 28 to April 29 we walked about 26km from Odawara Station in Kanagawa Prefecture to Checkpoint no 3.
The night began in a dramatic way, with a strong lightening storm and plenty of rain. There were lots of frantic phone calls back and forth as we tried to decide whether to carry on or not. In the end the consensus was to get on with it and pack rain gear. We meet up in Shizuoka city at around 9pm, very genki and lively, ready to catch a shinkansen train to Odawara city. I'd done a supermarket stock up the night before as I get very hungry easily. I had a bunch of bananas, biscuits, muesli bars, sandwiches and various energy drinks to get me through.
At Odawara Station we sat on the ground and stretched, much to the bemusement of suit clad commuters. We were also accosted by a, shall we say, strange foreign man who gazed at us a bit too intently and asked us the best place to go to see "Fuji yama". *NB* Mt Fuji is known to Japanese as Fuji san, not Fuji yama. We waved him off on his way and then about 15 minutes later, when we were looking at a map of Odawara city, he jumped in front of us again and asked where he could find a hotel! Luckily he gave us a bit of fodder for jokes later on.
After much walking and looking at maps, we eventually found our way to the start line of the Oxfam 100km walk, thanks to Azusa's awesome map reading skills. By this stage it was 11:15pm and we were raring to go. Well, maybe not quite raring to go, but we had lots of energy. Unfortunately we got waylaid a few times - our Oxfam map book wasn't as detailed as it first seemed, so we spent a lot of time with books in hand, looking for our way.
On our way we chatted quite a bit about various things. Marian came up with the genius idea that hiking is good for your butt, boys like butts and will therefore give you chocolate! That sentiment kept us going for a bit. The scariest part of the walk was walking through forest in the dark looking for track markers with our headlamps. Unfortunately we had to walk past a scrapped car, which looked postively haunted in the dark with mist surrounding it and a steering wheel sticking out. We all practically ran past that car, and continued up the mountain.
Eventually it started to get lighter and lighter in the forest, and we could hear birds chirping. The sunrise was amazing - a startling glowing crimson ball of light. By this stage we weren't talking very much due to exhaustion. My legs felt like they weighed about 10kg each. We all sat around and ate a bit of food and then kept going. After about another hour and a half of walking, we made it to checkpoint two - a flower garden car park. Due to lack of sleep we all curled up on the concrete and slept for about half an hour.
By this stage, we were shattered but we decided to walk to checkpoint 3 and then call it a day. We had originally planned on making it to checkpoint 4 but then decided this wasn't a good idea due to how tired we all were. Personally, I had no idea just how hard it was going to be walking through the night on no sleep. I was a zombie!!! Luckily we were in the gorgeous town of Hakone and got some nice pics of Mt Fuji peeking through the clouds. Then it was on a bus to the station and back home to Shizuoka. I got home and ended up sleeping for about 15 hours straight - 4pm to 6:40am the next day.
So, that's a summary of our big team night walk. Tomorrow Azusa, Melissa D and I will be walking from Checkpoint 7 until the finish so wish us luck (luckily this is a day walk : ) )
We would appreciate any words of encouragement and motivation. Also, we are not doing this walk for ourselves, but to raise money for a reputable charity that great work all over the world.
To do this walk, we need to raise 120,000 yen so please donate to us, either by giving us money in person or using the link on this page to donate via the Just Giving website.
Thanks a bunch!
Love, Mel xxxx
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