KOBAYASHI, Miyazaki -- The dark night sky was sprinkled liberally with countless stars. In the middle of my vision was the Milky Way, dividing the sky in two from northwest to southeast, with the Andromeda galaxy sparkling on the left.
Hinamori auto campground in Kobayashi, Miyazaki Prefecture, is located on a plateau 700 meters above sea level in Kirishima-Kinkowan National Park, which spreads over the prefectural border between Miyazaki and Kagoshima prefectures.
At the end of November, I visited the site for my first winter camping experience, as I wanted to discover the attraction of camping under a starry night sky.
The temperature dropped sharply even before evening came. Hearing the nice crackling sound of a campfire, I set out to barbecue my dinner. I had prepared raw shiitake mushrooms, taro and asparagus purchased at a nearby roadside rest station, and a main dish of free-range chicken from a local shop. Enjoying the blessings of nature, I waited for the sky to fill with stars.
After dinner, the crescent moon and Venus, which had been floating in the southwestern sky, hid behind the ridge. The number of fires at the campsite and the light leaking from tents gradually decreased. Conditions were right to start taking photos.
The wind was calm, but the cold was severe -- and thus the air was very clear. I clicked away with my camera at the starry sky high above for two hours. After drinking some hot wine to warm up, I slipped into a sleeping bag.
When Shinmoedake in the Kirishima mountain range erupted in 2011, the campsite was forced to close temporarily. But in fiscal 2018, about 15,000 people visited the campsite, more than the number before the eruption.
Visitors can enjoy the fresh air of the plateau in summer, but sometimes the campground is fully booked on weekends even in winter.
The campsite, located about 8 kilometers from the city, is not really affected by city lights and the air is clear, which allows visitors to enjoy starry night skies.
The Environment Ministry's Star Watching Network has ranked Kobayashi in the top five of good star-viewing places three times.
"More and more people are enjoying camping alone. They seem to have a relaxing time looking at the stars and doing other things," Masaaki Suyama, 46, head of the campsite, said. Speaking for myself, I was satisfied as I could enjoy the night sky to my heart's content.
Wondering what kind of stars I had taken photos of, the following day I drove about 30 minutes to an observatory, the North Kirishima Cosmo Dome.
When I showed my photos to Shuichi Higashi, 62, the director of the museum, to ask the names of the stars he told me something interesting: "You can see the stars here even in the daytime."
If atmospheric conditions are good, he said, a telescope can identify bright stars such as first-magnitude stars.
Using a 60-centimeter reflecting telescope, I looked near the zenith of the sky and found Vega, a first-magnitude star of Lyra, shining like a jewel in the blue sky.
"The conditions are especially good during this season when cold dry air flows in," Higashi said.
When I laid down on the grass and looked up at the night sky, I had felt the earth against my back. My vision had been completely filled with stars, as if I was traveling through space.
White, crunchy sturgeon
A restaurant called Idenoyama Ikoi no Ie offers dishes made with sturgeon raised in the "Idenoyama spring water" that wells up from the Kirishima mountain range. The spring water is ranked as one of the 100 best waters in the nation.
The restaurant mainly uses 3-year-old male sturgeon measuring 60-90 centimeters long. I ordered a fried sturgeon set meal. The white meat of this freshwater fish was chewy. The dish comes with four or five pieces of fried fish along with carp in miso soup for 1,260 yen. The restaurant also sells 23-gram bottles of caviar starting at 8,000 yen.
--Access
By car, drive about three hours from the Fukuoka Interchange to the Kobayashi Interchange.
By train from Hakata Station, take the Shinkansen line to Shin-Yatsushiro Station and transfer to an express bus bound for the Kobayashi Interchange, which takes about two hours in total. It takes about 20 minutes by car from the interchange to the campground.
For more information, call the Kobayashi Tourism Association at (0984) 22-8684 or Hinamori auto campground at (0984) 23-8100.
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