day 234 - Lake Toya

Totally unrelated to Hokkaido or Japan! One of my poems will be broadcast on Australia's ABC radio and online TOMORROW. For more, see HERE.

We arrived a little late for the G8 Summit, but all the infrastructure, potted plants and welcome signs were still in place for Lyn and Rob Walker of Cherry Gardens, South Australia.

Boom! Lake Toya is in the middle of a VERY active volcanic region. The lake is a 180m deep caldera. Within the lake are a number of mountains (only about 100 000 years old) which form Nakajima and smaller islands. The area has had eruptions in 2000, 1977, 1945 and 1912 (every time preceded by earth tremors so the loss of life has been minimal, considering.)

Time to clean the kitchen floor.

There's an excellent Volcano Science Museum at Lake Toya and behind it a Walking Trail of the Remnants of the 1977 and 2000 Eruptions, including this entire apartment block which has been bombarded by volcanic rocks and had a one-storey-high mudflow pass through it.