Two wheels over Japan (part 1)

After watching two games of rugby in Kyoto and Tokyo in last year’s Rugby World Cup, Bangkok expat Andrew Macpherson stayed on in Japan to explore the country’s deep south by bike.

​Apart from tackling numerous grueling mountain rides, his epic 18-day journey also involved constant and sometimes fruitless searches for overnight accommodation.

With a cold drink from the roadside vending machine & an earlier purchased sandwich, I picked the middle of the Kinonemisato (pedestrian suspension) Bridge over the Yoshino River, as the perfect spot to sit down to enjoy my lunch

Arahira Tenjin Shrine, on the way back from Cape Sata. When tide is lower you can walk across. Young people come here to pray for success in school exams.

A miniature Torii, under 1m high, perched atop a rock in the East China Sea coast Torii is literally bird abode, is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred.

Day 1. (15th Oct) 8.30 am start and I’m off on the coastal road to Ibusuki and on to Yamagawa, a 54 km ride from where I catch the ferry over to Nejime, which is a 50-minute crossing. On arrival, I decided to go to the most southerly point at Cape Sata, a 35 km ride from the ferry. Having watched the sun dropping in the sky, I figure it’s time to find a hotel. At 105 km and just as darkness is fall­ing, my front tyre has a puncture. It’s quickly pitch black. This is where the roadside drink vending machines come into their own, by providing a much needed floodlit area to fix a puncture.

Puncture now fixed with a new inner tube, and with information from a local who stopped at the drink vend­ing machine, who had advised me that the only place to find accommodation was by going 20 km back down the mountains I’d already climbed, or maybe about 40 km in the opposite direction.

Since I hadn’t spotted any accommodation in the previous 20 km, I opted for the road ahead and cycled off into the darkness, although I had lights on my bicycle at this point. A wrong turn at a junction found me on a track that petered out into a sandy beach, so a bit of backtrack­ing was called for. Eventually with 153 km cycled that day I arrived in a town, where at about 11.30 pm the only sign of life was a lit window at a launderette. The bench in front of the window was to be my accommodation for my first night of the cycling trip, not quite what was planned. But with a rechargeable front light that had run out of power at least three hours earlier, I deemed it too dangerous to continue riding down more mountains without being able to see the roads.

Sakurajima  It is the most active volcano in Japan. The horizontal white line with two down legs (off centre in the picture) is the route I cycled along around the volcano

Day 2. (16th Oct) 5.50 am start and my first stop was about 10 km down the road at the convenience store in Kinko, where the previous evening’s missed dinner and this morning’s breakfast was consumed. Then it was off and following the coastal road to the ferry at Sakurajima. This coastal route 224 brought me immediately below the most active volcano in Japan and the volcanic ash left me constantly needing to clear the grit out of my mouth as I’m cycling. Wearing glasses helped to protect my eyes, but they still were becoming irritated with the ash. Whenever I rode on a pavement or on any track that wasn’t well used that day, my tyres left a trail in the ash. It definitely can’t be a healthy environment to live in, but it is a natural environ­ment nonetheless. Fifteen minutes after boarding the ferry and I’m already disembarking and with a booking made I’m soon heading to my hotel in Kagoshima City, located about 200 m from where I’d stayed two nights earlier. Just 75 km covered that day.

Day 3. (17th Oct) 8.30 am start and I’m heading off on the coastal road (Rte 10) which for the first 35 km has me riding in the area that’s also blanketed in volcanic ash from Sakurajima. I then get into the mountains and decide to try to make it to Miyakonojo, which is 76 km from my start point. After reaching Miyakonojo I had to cycle a further 20 km before I could find a hotel with a no smoking room.

Day 4. (18th Oct) 10.00 am start with the rain retreat­ing to a light drizzle and then I’m off heading over the mountains towards the city of Miyazaki. At some point during the day I decide to book a room ahead of my arrival so at least I will be guaranteed a bed, even though I don’t know what the terrain will be like. My hotel in Nobeoka represents a 139 km ride for that day.

Day 5. (19th Oct) 9.45 am start and I decide that Saiki located just 66 km away is my destination. Not too many mountains and I’m in Saiki in the early afternoon and find a room at the first hotel I go to. I’m feeling so energetic I then go out for a 10 km ride around the city on my bicycle, just to remind me how nice it is to ride without the weight of my luggage on board.

Fully loaded, first day cycling, steam from the hot springs was rising from all the drains in this street in Ibusuki.

Wherever there was a piece of flat land, if there wasn't a house or industrial building built on it, there was a carefully tended crop being grown. In this case rice

Himeji Castle, the largest and most visited castle in Japan, and it was registered in 1993 as one of the first UNESCO world heritage sites in Japan

Day 6. (20th Oct) 8.00 am start I head off over the mountains (or at least through the mountains) towards Oita and then start to check the apps for hotel availability. The rooms are ridiculously priced, some four or five times the usual rate. I was soon to realise why - the place is filled with foreigners here to watch the Rugby World Cup. England had played Australia the previous day and Wales were playing France later that day. I continued on my way and headed for Buzen. Going over the mountain from Rte 10 over Rte 24 was a most exhausting 343 m climb in the midday heat, taking me almost three quarters of an hour just to cover a 4.6 km stretch of a 7.4% gradient hill. I even­tually arrived at Yashitomi after cycling 138 km and easily found a hotel for the night.

With the super friendly owner of the Rider & Guest House Kazeyoubi, he was the one that suggested I rode the Shimanami-Kaido

Day 7. (21st Oct) 10.15 am start and I ride on the road running parallel to the coast before heading to Kanmon to make the crossing to Shimonoseki. Problem was when I arrived in Kanmon I couldn’t find any bridge except the Expressway bridge which had signs saying no bicycles, so I headed off looking for a ferry to make the crossing. Soon found there was a tunnel below the sea and that was the route for pedestrians and cyclists and those on small motorcycles. A lift took me down to the entrance and then it was a case of pushing the bicycle through the tunnel, just under 1 km in length. Upon reaching the surface at the other side, I met a fellow touring cyclist, an American out of the Philippines, who said that I was the first fellow tour­ing cyclist that he’d met in his almost two-month cycling tour in Japan; he was the first one that I had met since I had started my ride. Not being too late in the day I arrived in Shimonoseki and managed to find a room in the fourth hotel that I visited.
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Day 8. (22nd Oct) 9.30 am start and I followed Rte 191 which was mostly a coast road but eventually became a very steep 253 m mountain climb towards the end of the day as I had decided that Hagi was my destination at 109 km cycled that day. No hotel rooms available here so I used an app to find a guest house, I should describe it as a shared dormitory. However, after warning the other guests about my snoring, I was given a dorm to myself.

Day 9. (23rd Oct) 8.30 am start and after not too long I figure I should book a room at a distance that I can confi­dently reach. I note two cities showing hotels available, so I book a hotel in the nearer city and after just 66 km cycling along Rte 191, all the time on the coast road, I arrive in Masuda before the 3pm check in time