Overview
The Oze River is a river in Hiroshima Prefecture and Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. The river forms part of the border between the two prefectures, which used to be the border between former Suō Province and Aki Province. It is also known as Kono River
Description
Oze National Park which encompasses Japan’s largest mountain wetlands stretches across four prefectures including Fukushima, Tochigi, Gunma, and Niigata. From mid-May, through to early October, the marshlands are teeming with day-trippers as well as those embarking on longer overnight hikes to Lake Ozenuma. Thankfully by late autumn the crowds have by and large thinned out, coinciding with the battering down of the mountain huts before the onslaught of a long, cold winter. As the autumn was rather late this year, those of us who did make the trip out in late October were rewarded with both wonderful weather and some landscapes which rank near the best I’ve seen in Japan.