Last weekend me and the kiddos went to Koda-cho and enjoyed horseback riding and eating (decent) pizza at the Tejas (Texas on some signs) Ranch. You can see a mini clip at the top of our son (7yo) felix being led around the corral for his ride.
It is a friendly place with lots of dogs around (really kid friendly dogs) all named after Toy story characters. Then there are the horses for riding lessons and children horse-led rides. We also enjoyed watching the motorcross event that was happening (4 times a year), apparently as Felix was happy to find out, you can start doing it from 2nd year of elementary school.
When we drove up, they were skinning an animal to put on the barbeque (really authentic cowboys, right?). We weren't sure what it was at first, turns out it was a few little unfortunate wild boar that they had caught in the forest nearby. As vegetarians, we stuck with the cheese pizzas on the menu (they have an impressive pizza oven out front), but the motorcross dudes seemed pretty excited about the inushishi.
Activities
- Horse-led rides costs 1,000 yen per loop and you can ride with your kids if they will let you (our kids want to do everything by themselves it seems). They also have riding "experience" for 3,000 yen for 30 minutes and riding lessons for slightly more.
- Off road bikes and car rentals (see website for reservations and details)
- Paragliding (see website for reservations and details)
- Stay- (you can stay in one of their furnished trailer homes)
Finding the Tejas ranch: It takes about an hour to drive out there on route 54 heading toward Miyoshi. This is the road that goes under the astram line from town and then continues straight past the malls in the Midori area (Toysrus and such) then continue past the Stained glass window museum in Kabe and up into the mountains.
Once you see signs for Koda-cho you are near. Keep an eye out for the Kotachi baseball area (in English) and then soonafter at a small t-intersection there is a sign for the Kotachi bypass east (in English), take a left here and immediately you will see a sign above you for the Mitsugi gardens (no longer open it seems but the signs are useful).
It is really easy to find once you know where the road is that leads up to it off of Rt.54. If you see a very impressive restaurant with a water wheel in front of it on the left, you have just missed the turn and you should loop back. There is also a big pharmacutical company and handball club on the right soon after the turn.
Tejas Ranch
542 Kamiko, Koda, Takada-gun, Hiroshima
0826-45-4469
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** The article below is about Paragliding at the Tejas ranch if you are interested (Marc Williams originally wrote it on Gethiroshima). Some of the information might be a bit outdated (written in 2001, but I think you can still appreciate a first timers experience and get the updated details from the Tejas ranch website (or Sora paragliding club's site).
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Take to the skies- summer adventure paragliding in Hiroshima
Marc Williams escapes the city and experiences the ups
...and downs of paragliding.
An hour or so along Route 54 beyond Kabe, as the convenience stores, panchinko shops and car dealerships eventually give way to sturdily roofed farmhouses and the deep green of rice fields, I finally began to relax. Shop-bought bon torou lanterns sparkle in the sun to welcome home ancestral spirits for another bon outing. The last generation of bent double farming women going about their chores, swallows, the rattle of insects finally convince me I have escaped the noisy concrete oven of Hiroshima in August. The trip has already been worth it.
The Tejas Ranch, in Takada-gun, is not far from the main road, sitting a few hundred metres up in a wide basin with great views of the surrounding hills. In the dusty
paddock a dark gelding rolled about. Our instructor from the
TEAMSORA paragliding school arrived. Mr Chimori, a deeply tanned man in his 40s in an exceptionaly cool pair of sunglasses, greeted us and quickly got down to the business of paragliding.
The wind was unfavorable. Numerous windsocks fluttered desultorily in the heat. Nevermind, my girlfriend Ikuko and I were soon strapped into harnesses that resembled modified rucksacks. The basics partially understood, I began charging down the green slope.
"Look up! Release Riser! Keep running!" Mr Chimori cheerfully exhorted, and to my huge surprise I found myself hanging in the air. "Up! Up!" a voice called from far away. But I went down, down and probably more rapidly than the usual 1.4 metre a second. I heard just one more "Up!" as I plunged into some rather scratchy bushes half way down the slope. The far away voice called out again "Are you alright?" "Oh, yes" I replied surveying the grazes on my legs.
"Oh, yes!" I called up more brightly as I began to appreciate, perhaps for the
first time, the wonderful intactness of my spine. The red earth was crumbly, and the paraglider wrapped in vegetation. As I scrambled about trying to gather it in a shadow passed. Up in the sky a beaming angel drifted by and floated gently to the ground a hundred metres away. Ikuko was flying.
At top of the hill I was cautioned against trying to fly with the brake on and promised not to do so again. The lack of wind was frustrating but after a rest in the shade I ran again, and, again to my surprise, ascended once more. The second flight was brief but controlled and I was beginning to feel like a pilot! Both Ikuko and I were exhilarated and wanted to fly again immediately but it was already time for lunch. We ate some fries at the air-conditioned lodge, discussed our flight and the possibility of riding a horse too (an intro lesson costs ¥2500).
A little later we were back on the slope. With weather conditions changeable and the wind
unreliable we were lucky to fly 5 times each.I switched to a bigger canopy which generated more lift and took me further. Apparently the previous day had seen a steady breeze and the chance to fly a dozen times. However, by flying on a Monday we had the full attention of our instructor as we were his only students. On Sunday, while we were at the Nekotama event at Club Chinatown, there had been a group of 12 novice pilots. After several flights
both Ikuko and I were better able to concentrate on the details of taking off and landing, and became more and more relaxed and confident. Our brief taste of paragiliding was remarkable and great fun.
On the way home we followed Mr Chimori, his 4WD bulging with equipment, to see another paragliding site in Mukaihara.
When we arrived we met some experienced SORA club members who were going to rescue another flyer who had just landed in the trees several hundred metres away. Apparently, it is common practice for paragliders to pack a mobile phone and a saw when they fly.
Paragliding is very much a minority sport, and perhaps one can appreciate why. There are less
than 5000 flyers in the USA and, though the sport is much more popular in Europe and Japan, with tens of thousands of club members, the total number of flyers is still small. The equipment is expensive costing at least $4000. Initial training takes about a 5 or 6 days and is a little more expensive in Japan. I am heading for Europe next week and I hope to take paragliding course in France or Spain. I think the intro lesson at ¥10,000 was very good value, and even if we never fly again we will always remember our a jaunt to the countryside to go "flying".
More info
TEAMSORA homepage
Wataru Chimori: 082-828-3208
or
contact TEAMSORA by email
A-Z of Paragliding
Tejas Ranch
542,Kamiko, Koda, Takada-gun, Hiroshima
0826-45-4469
Books
Paragliding The Complete Guide
Marc Williams 08/2001
