Our journey to Beppu was eventful. Our train from Matsuyama to Yamatahama was delayed (who says Japanese trains always run in time?) so Anthony was anxious about us getting to the ferry terminal in time for our ferry to Beppu.

The local train didn’t have any English translations so we had to watch out for our stop. We passed through lots of mountain tunnels and some really small towns. There were lots of terraced fruit trees.

We had 45 minutes to get from the train station to the ferry terminal but decided to walk the 1.3km. It was mostly down one straight road. Anthony forged ahead and I had to do some short spurts of running to keep up. It even started to rain but not heavily. A couple of gentlemen felt sorry for us when we arrived at the terminal and helped us up the gangplank into the ferry.

The ferry is much like the Spirit of Tasmania only smaller. There weren’t many vehicles being loaded and not that many people on board. You can pay extra for a berth but our economy seats also gave us the option of lying down in one of the many lying down areas.

Anthony loves ferry travel and was like a ‘pig in mud’. I was OK after a hot milk tea. The passage to Beppu took a bit over two hours.

Beppu itself is not very exciting and seems a little rundown. It’s known for its thermal springs and you can visit the Seven Hells which are thermal and mud springs, and geysers. There was much more traffic than we have seen so far. I’m not sure whether this means more people drive in Kyushu but we were close to a main road.

We stayed in an older style small Japanese hotel at the surf beach. Our room was large and the hot water comes from the hot springs so took a little time to warm up.

We had the Japanese set breakfast which comes with lots of small cold and hot dishes and roasted green tea and very attentive staff.

There were two different Japanese bath houses which I went to – an outside one of the 6th floor and an inside one on the 7th floor with ocean views. We enjoyed the complimentary Japanese tea and sweets sitting and looking out to the ocean but the two twin beds were very hard.

We went up the nearby Beppu tower for the view but it wasn’t very exciting. It seems a little run down and not really the place to enjoy a quiet drink and snack whilst taking in the view.

The view from the 7th floor of the Tokiwa department store was almost as good.

We enjoyed the two places we found for drinks and shared plates. At the first one we had delicious tempura chicken and octopus balls with a gin and tonic and Asahi beer.

The second place was more a family establishment and we enjoyed our three dishes – grilled mackerel, prawns and asparagus, and grilled shiitake mushrooms – and sweet potato Shoshu and Asahi beer. There are so many of these little places in Japan and they are very good value.

Other highlights included Anthony getting his head shaved by a local barber and eating a white bread pull apart and free coffee at the department store and doing our laundry at a coin operated laundromat!