Kyoto, Kinki, Japan
Thursday, January 5, 2017

*CAL*

Our guide for the day was Dyl (Riverboat Ron). Ron ran a high paced game early on with the veterans struggling to keep up. The first destination for the day was Kyoto station to find some breakfast before we headed on to Kameoka to head on one of Ron's famous Riverboats. Now moving at a more leisurely pace we drifted down the river in a nicely protected 400 year old fibreglass, steel and plastic canoe.

It was a nice ride down some picturesque valleys and little rapids that had the girls up and about. It was punctuated by the comedy routines of the crew, led by "Captain Jack Sparrow" and their many dubious names for rocks that apparently looked like various animals.

Our journey ended in Arashiyama, a little touristy town on the river where first stop for myself, Lou and Maj was a nice little hipster cafe that the Claremont types would love. It was selling real espresso coffee, the first decent ones we have had since leaving Perth.

From there, Riverboat Ron took us on a decent walk uphill to see the Monkey Park, with the oldest of our troop, Ash, struggling and lagging a little behind. On arrival there were macaque monkeys all around and the opportunity to feed the bossy ones by hand. It just happened to be mating season which lit things up on occasion.

Next stop on Riverboat's tour was the Bamboo forest where Ron laid out a nice Japanese lady with a helmet to helmet hit, that Luke Kuechly would be happy with. The bamboo also made for some good photos and a nice stroll. From there most of the groups grabbed some vending machine ice creams and we caught the train back to Kyoto before heading out to get Udon noodles which Louise had been craving and searching for since our trip started. We sought one out and made the journey across town only to be turned away on walking through the door! We headed next door for Chinese before heading back to our accommodation for an early night.