Today I’m going to walk across the sky. I leave my hotel in Miyazaki City at 8 o’clock sharp and cross the road to the bus stop opposite. My bus isn’t quite as punctual and arrives six minutes late. It’s a one hour drive to Aya Town, a place that describes itself as one of the most beautiful villages in Japan, a title that intends to enhance the added value of sightseeing and develop the regional economy, or so the flyer explains.

I arrive at Aya Bus Station, probably the smallest bus station I’ve ever seen. The town of Aya is located at the foot of the Kyushu Mountains, is incredibly rural, and over 75% of the total area is made up of forests, specifically warm-temperate evergreen broadleaf forests. Despite it being just after nine in the morning, and technically winter, a digital display screen accurately informs me that the temperature right now is 27°C.

I check the bus timetable but can only see buses here that go back to Miyazaki City, so I decide to walk; my destination a mere twelve kilometres away, up a mountain. The first hour of my stroll is along a straight country road passing rice fields and old houses, before it eventually turns into the aforementioned mountain forest.

The forest is breathtaking, it meanders skywards further and higher into the mountains. Small waterfalls appear intermittently, the Hongo River below shines a cobalt blue, the track is steep but fair, and the only thing I have to complain about is the intense heat. The final kilometre becomes steeper still, but I go on, for above me, hanging majestically across the sky, sits a bridge.

To be entirely honest, I don’t like heights. Just gazing up at the bridge from below makes me unsteady. I wasn’t expecting the bridge to be so enormous. I squint and see tiny people on the bridge, their scale in comparison to its delicate metal frame is bewildering. I look up and stare and mutter to myself, “Not a chance. Not a chance.”

I’m not out of the woods yet, I discover that I still have another four kilometres to reach the actual entrance to the bridge, the four steepest of the kilometres. Hot, thirsty, and feeling as though I have walked for hours (I have), I long for nothing more than a vending machine, and as I finally reach the entrance to the bridge, the first thing I do is reach for a bottle of Pocari Sweat.

The Aya Teruha Suspension Bridge was original built in 1984, but due to safety concerns it had to be reconstructed in 2011. The bridge is a ridiculous 250 metres in length and its highest point 142 metres from the Ayaminami River below. The bridge had, up until a few years ago, held the records for being the longest bridge in the world and the highest bridge in the world.

“Not a chance,” I utter aloud once again, before stepping onto the bridge.

I stride along the bridge with ease. I look around and admire the view of the dark green glossy leaves that cover every inch of the mountains beyond, the hot bright sun dazzling in the blue sky above and painting the forest in its radiant glow, the bridge, with its grated walkway that spans its entire length; it makes me feel as though there is nothing beneath me, just the impending oblivion below, the anticipation of apprehension, panic washing over me, I become enveloped by the empty feeling of dread, that something here isn’t quite right. I suddenly feel lost and found in the same moment, the inevitable misery of the end, flickering in my thoughts, a cocktail of emotions swirling around, one step at a time.

I stop to let the feeling pass, it will pass, and it does. All the fear inside of me scatters away in a single moment, like a lonely sand castle collapsing on a desolate beach, suddenly, it is gone, and I return to myself.

As I reach the other side, the first thing I notice is the strong smell of the lucidophyllous trees. The second thing I notice is that the path ahead twists toward a long promenade that runs along the mountain slope then loops around, before eventually returning to its starting position, the Aya Teruha Suspension Bridge. I’m rather annoyed as I have to cross the bridge for a second time.

Back down the mountain I go, and some fifteen kilometres later I arrive at the entrance to Aya Castle.

Only built in 1985, this place describes itself as Japan’s oldest mountain castle, but it’s not; it isn’t even on a mountain. This is a reconstruction of a castle that was destroyed 700 years ago. Inside this wooden castle is a small museum commemorating feudal warriors and the history of Aya Town.

Leaving Aya Castle I wander back in the direction of Aya Bus Station, however, before I can leave, for whatever reason, I have to cross over yet another suspension bridge; this one is a lot shorter, but still high enough above the ground to once again trigger my fear of heights.

I decide that this is one bridge too many, it exceeds the limits of what is reasonable and acceptable. It literally is a bridge too far.