This February we spent twelve days on a rather small boat, hunting whales (for photographs) along the Baja peninsula, down the Pacific and up into the Sea of Cortez.

My daughter, who is a small woman to start with managed to lose 4kg or just over half a stone in weight not because the sea was rough (aside from a couple of days) but because the cook was rubbish and there was nothing for someone with a dodgy stomach to eat.

When you’re seasick the last thing you want is to be faced with a plate of something not-quite-curry-notquite-sweet&sour.

But we certainly found whales.

And dolphins of many types, even a porpoise though since that was being hunted to death by a (rare) type of killer whale, maybe that was less than lucky.

The reason for choosing this trip in particular was the access to lagoons along the coast.

The lagoons alongside the Pacific are where grey whales calve, and unable to do anything but feed their calves for months on end in a desperate bid to get them strong enough for the journey back to the Arctic, the whales get very bored and curious.

So when people descend (only one boat is allowed in the lagoon at a time) in little skiffs, the whales approach and interact.

Petting a wild grey whale that has come to be scratched and scritched by you and your fellows sharing a tiny little boat much smaller than the baby whale never mind its mother lifting it up to see you, has to be one of the most amazing experiences.

Two full days of whale petting later, and we set off south to find humpbacks dancing and singing in the waves off the tip of the peninsula along the way meeting up with bryde, fin and blue whales. The female humpbacks swim south to breed, but are quite likely to decide once there that they don’t fancy it and turn around to swim back. A dominant male will accompany her on the journey in hope of breeding whilst others approach and attempts to jostle him away from her side.

From the boat, this all looks incredibly serene: a family group happily travelling in tandem. From above the slicing and dicing of swimming males trying to cut each other up in the water, blowing bubbles to warn of territory and threat is more apparent.

It was both the best and worst of trips.

Best news of all: I will never feel a need to go whale watching on a boat again.

Worst news of all: Photographing in the wild is hideously expensive, and incredibly addictive. Tigers in India are next.

Thinking about some of the most beautiful places in the world that I have visited, and it seems that mountains and deserts dominate.

It is difficult to find anywhere as beautiful as the Himalayan country of Bhutan, not just for the mountains, but also for the culture itself and the loveliness of the people who live there.

From the iconic Tiger’s Nest monastery clinging to the mountain side,

though to the incredibly beautiful and impressive architecture of the tzongs.

Where is the most beautiful part of the world that you have ever seen?

Yosemite in California US has to come top of my list and though it’s a total cliche, there is such a sense of grandeur in the scale of the valley, that it really could be described as God’s own country.

It’s one of the few places that I’ve been back to, deliberately and consciously because it is so very beautiful.

If you had to choose your favourite places that you’ve visited where would they be? Lockdown seems to be the time for lists, especially when it comes to social media.

The most surprisingly beautiful place in the world, that I’ve been to is the Namib Rand desert in Namibia. Words cannot describe such a truly stunning the landscape.

There is a crest in the dunes where you arrive and pause for breath and the whole world seems spread out before you, the colours astonishing and the world seems larger somehow.

At the end of the Kyushu peninsula in Japan, about as far south west as you can go, is the city of Kagoshima, end of the bullet train rail pass. It’s also the jumping off point for the ferry to the sub-tropical Yakushima.

Yakushima (屋久島) is one of the Osumi Islands, 504.88 km² (194.94 sq mi) in area, with a small a population of 13,178, mostly hippies. We crossed t the island by 2hour hydrofoil, but there is also a ferry, a slower car ferry, and flights to Yakushima Airport  (3 to 5 times daily from Kagoshima, once daily from Fukokoa and once daily from Osaka).

To drive in Japan, you need an international drivers licence, which we’d not realised – next time we’ll take one and hire a car there.

In 1980 an area of 18,958ha (46,850 acres) was designated a UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve. 

It is the largest nesting ground for the endangered loggerhead sea turtle in the North Pacific, though we were slightly too late in September to see the main baby turtles race for the ocean and my family were all too squeamish about the “circle of life” death run that involved to actively hunt out the few remaining sites where turtles could be found.

 Yakushima’s unique remnant of warm/temperate ancient forest has been a natural World Heritage Site since 1993. In the Wilderness core area (12.19 square kilometres (3,010 acres)) of the World Heritage Site, no record of past tree cutting can be traced.

The island is visited by 300,000 tourists every year.

The bedrock of the island is granite, and as such it hosts no active volcanoes. It has an area of approximately 504.5 square kilometres (194.8 sq mi) and is is roughly circular in shape.

It feels like a mountain rising straight from the ocean bed and many of the tourists who visit do so in order to walk the circumference of peaks at the centre of the island.

That was never going to be us – we settled for some leisurely day trips and hunting out watering holes including some of the numerous hot springs to be found here.

Yakushima contains one of the largest tracts of existing  Nansei Islands subtropical evergreen forests, and endangered habitat ecoregion.

The only large animals indigenous to the island are red-bottomed macaques and a variety of sika deer (yakushika).

Yakushima is famous for its lush vegetation. Whilst most of the island has at one time or another been logged (dating back at least to the early Edo period), it has been extensively replanted and reseeded since logging ended in the late 1960s, at which time a conservation regime was established.

In addition to this secondary forest, there are some remaining areas of primary forest, composed mainly of a variety of Japanese cedar, known as yakusagi (屋久杉), the best known single example of which is named the Jōmon Sugi (縄文杉), as its age is estimated to date to at least the Jomon period of Japanese history, 2300 years ago.

In addition, the island lists over 50 varieties of endemic flower, as well as a number of endemic trees.

Yakushima has a humid sub-tropical climate with hot, humid summers and mild winters. It is also Japan’s wettest place, where in Summer the locals say it rains “35 days a month”.

There are drier periods in autumn and winter, and when we visited it was dry throughout. It is the southernmost place in Japan where there is snow in the mountains, often for months, while the ocean temperature is never below 19 °C (66 °F)

And none of these very wonderful facts happens to be the reason we visited because yakushima is also the inspiration for Hayao Miyazaki‘s film Princess Mononoke.

It is one of the most beautiful places on earth that I have visited, and I’ve visited many places.

Heading relentlessly west from Tokyo, through the countryside, through Osaka and Hiroshima, eventually if you keep going as we did, you reach the city of Nagasaki.

Nagasaki (Japanese: 長崎, “Long Cape“) is the capital and the largest city of the Nagasaki prefecture  on the island of Kyushu in Japan.

It is an easy city to get around with plentiful, reliable and safe tramlines.

It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries.

There are many possible reasons for wanting to visit, not least the memorial to the atomic bombing of the city, similar to Hiroshima. During WW2, the American atomic bombing of the city made Nagasaki the second and, to date, last city in the world to experience a nuclear attack (at 11:02 a.m., August 9, 1945 ‘Japan Standard Time (UTC+9)’).

The Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki region have been recognized and included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Part of Nagasaki was home to a major Imperial Japanese navy base during the First Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War.

But for us, the main reason was to try and get a feel for the early life of European traders who were segregated away from the Japanese population into ghettoes, both for work and for life.

Even the fact that the European ghetto lies up on top of the hillside is mitigated by a covered outdoor escalator and/or a outdoor life that will take you up to the top of the Gardens.

Glover Garden (グラバー園, Gurabāen) is a park in Nagasaki built for Thomas Blake Glover, a Scottish merchant who contributed to the modernization of Japan in shipbuilding, coal mining, and other fields.

In amongst other western style houses, stands the Glover Residence, the oldest Western style house surviving in Japan and Nagasaki’s foremost tourist attraction.

It has the bonus of being located on the Minamiyamate hillside overlooking Nagasaki harbor. It was built by Hidenoshin Koyama and completed in 1863 and is now designated as an Important Cultural Asset for Japan.

From the coffee shop located in one of the historic buildings there is a wonderful view of the harbour.

Because although it’s major city, with a population of around half a million, it still feels very human in scale, surrounded by hills around a beautiful natural harbour.

Outside of Glover Park you can still find the remains of Dejima, a small artificial island originally located in the bay of Nagasaki but now incorporated into the city itself.

Dejima was built in 1634 to house Portuguese traders and separate them from Japanese society by digging a canal through a small peninsula.

The Dutch were moved to Dejima in 1641 and during most of the Edo period the island was the single place of direct trade and exchange between Japan and the outside world.

Dejima was abolished after the Treaty of Kanagwa  in 1854 and the island was later integrated into Nagasaki city through land reclamation.

Nagasaki feels as though it is one of the few Japanese cities to have been foreign influenced in any way, not just the existence of the European ghettoes but a real and vibrant Chinatown.

As well as the relics throughout town of it’s European past.

Like all Japanese cities it feels incredibly safe and secure for tourists even at nighttime.

Nagasaki Gallery:

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No one is allowed to be born or to die on Miyajima, the island just south of Hiroshima.

We were told it was believed to be the place where the gods came down to earth.

Presumably the minute someone looks like they’re about to pop their clogs or deliver a baby, they’re shipped off island onto a boat.

There is a cable car up the side of the mountain that we failed to enjoy but the main reason to visit is the Itsukishima shrine and the main buddhist temple.

Whilst these were clearly lovely, it was the general feel of the town, the friendliness of the people (mostly older) and the everyday shrines that we cam across just wandering around, looking for somewhere for lovely for lunch or supper.

Miyajima (宮島) is a small island officially named Itsukushima and less than an hour outside the city of Hiroshima and one of the highlights of our trip to Japan.

It is most famous for its giant torii gate currently under renovation, which at high tide seems to float on the water.

The sight is ranked as one of Japan’s three best views and for the Itsukushima shrine, also built over the water

There are also wild deer on the island that have become accustomed to people. In the day the deer wander around the same sites as the tourists, and in the evening they sleep along the walking paths.

Daisho-in (大聖院, Daishōin) is one of the most important temples of Shingon Buddhism in Japan

It is located at the base of Mount Misen, on which the sect’s founder, Kobo Daishi, first began the practice of Buddhism on the island of Miyajima.

Daisho-in features a variety of buildings, statues and other religious objects for visitors to admire.

These include the Kannon-do Hall, the Maniden Hall, a sand mandala made by visiting monks from Tibet, a tea room and a cave filled with 88 icons representing the temples of the Shikoku Pilgrimage.

An interesting Buddhist ritual can be performed when walking up the temple’s steps.

Along the stairs is a row of spinning metal wheels that are inscribed with sutra (Buddhist scriptures).

Turning the inscriptions as one walks up is believed to have the same effect as reading them.

So, without any knowledge of Japanese, you can benefit from the blessings that the reading of sutra is believed to entail.

Daishō-in is is the 14th temple in the Chūgoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage and famous for the maple trees and their autumn colors.

It is also called “Suishō-ji”.

As the headquarters of the Omuro branch of Shingon Buddhism, it is the most important temple of Miyajima.

The temple was the administrator of the Itsukushima shrine before Meiji Restoration forbade (Shinbutsu bunri) syncretism (Shinbutsu-shūgō) between Shinto and Buddhism in 1868

Itsukushima (厳島) is an island in the western part of theInland Sea of Japan, located in the northwest of Hiroshima Bay. 

It is popularly known as Miyajima (宮島), which in Japanese means “Shrine Island”.

The island is one of Hayashi Gaho’s Three Views of Japan specified in 1643.

Itsukushima is part of the city of Hatsukaichi  in Hiroshima Prefecture.

The island was part of the former town of Miyajima before the 2005 merger with Hatsukaichi.

So after a day visit to the Hiroshima Peace memorial, we returned to the railway station and caught the train down to the coast,

for a ferry to the Island.

Most tourists visit for the day and then head back to the mainland, but there is real value in staying overnight, or in our case for a few nights.

Once the tourists have gone home, the island turns quiet and restful. The shrines you visited in the morning are open reasonably late and can be re-visited with fewer people, and in the case of the Itsukushima Shrine with its famous red tori gates, possibly more water depending on the tide.

Note that in Japan, the term “shrine” implies a Shinto religious structure and “temple” implies a Buddhist one.

Miyajima is famous for the Itsukishima Shrine (厳島神社, Itsukushima-jinja) which is a shinto shrine, sitting in a shallow coastal harbour, known for its “floating” torii gate.

The historic shrine complex is listed as a UNESCO World heritage site, as well as one of the National treasures by the Japanese government.

It is also the site visited by many families for a couple’s wedding photos in traditional outfits.

For our visit, the tori gates were being repaired and under cover, but on shrine island there are plenty of beautiful sites to see and visit. More than enough places to make up for missing the gate.