Miyama Kirishima flowers at Haneyama 西万年・万年山

Finally we got to go on a hike further away. To view this years Miyama Kirishima we went to Haneyama. This is a wonderful and easy hike around, up and across a mountain which is famous for it's blooms of Miyama Kirishima flowers. This wonderful alpine variant of Tsutsuji Azalea flowers. They bloom at around 1000 meters altitude and completely blanket many mountains in Kyushu in the month of May. We hiked through the fields and past a campsite to a beautiful flower covered field before climbing the mountain. The top of the mountain was also covered in flowers and that combined with the amazing blue skies made the hike fantastic. At the top I met a cute Instagram follower yn0863 and we took a picture together. Nice! When we got back to the car park people were handing out small flags. Apparently today was an open day for the mountain, we had no idea! After hiking we visited a nearby Michinoeki farm shop for lunch and then visited the railway museum and old round house. Our timing was great and we got to see famous kyushu trains as well as ride a small time train.