Oki Kojima Island

What is that island floating in the sea? It is Oki Kojima. You can see it from the Sakurajima Ferry too. During the Anglo-Satsuma War, a battery of the Satsuma Domain was located there and fired at British battleships sailing in the vicinity. The island is now uninhabited. There used to be a plan by the prefectural government to develop the island into a campground, but it was canceled for its protection and environmental preservation when it was discovered that the island was the southernmost breeding ground for Locustella pleskei, which is a bird listed as a rare species on the Ministry of the Environment's Red List.

 

This is lava that flowed from the south during the Bunmei Great Eruption. Beyond it lies the Nojiri River, where mudslides frequently occur. When I pass the Nojiri Bridge after it rains, I see rocks and stones lying all over the place and think, "Oh, there was a mudslide”. The sediment left in the river channel is transported by dump truck to the site of a former lava quarry in Arimura-cho. It also used to be used for reclamation at Marine Port Kagoshima. Now that the eruption activity has quieted down and erosion control dams have been built, we can feel the way we do now, but in the 20th century, the bridge was often swept away by mudslides.