Rather Be Waking Up Here…
I’m going to try to list these in their correct order however there were a few that I missed due to rain or sleepiness or the urge to get packed up and go find some decent food, but here is a selection of places we slept in Japan…
First camp of the entire trip… Underestimating the distance from Chichibu to Lake Haruna, and with the daylight quickly leaving us, we pitched the Holler on a hillside overlooking the city of Tomioka. This was our first time ‘rogue’ camping on public land and we were a little nervous about it, but as you’ll see from the pics that follow, as long as you stay out of the way and are respectful about where and when you set up camp, you really camp sleep just about anywhere in Japan…
The next day we made it to the stunning Lake Haruna and found a nice little spot off the back of the car park…
Next day was to Kuni where we threw down in the Onsen carpark then made the pass over Shirane-san and finished the day in Yamanouchi where we met the awesome Yuuki and shared a rogue spot at the michi-no-eki…
Sixty kilometres of almost non stop decending sounds like a lot right? Yeah, it is… But that was the route that took us to the port city of Joetsu where we had to choose between the bobsled course and the BMX track as camp spots. True story… We cooked dinner at the bobsled course overlooking the city…
Few hours on the ferry then a couple of days on Sado Island. Our ferry back to Honshu was super early and left from the city of Ryotsu. We had a good roll around looking for somewhere we could get away with sleeping without putting tents up, the idea being that we could sleep a little later if we didnt need to muck around packing tents away and stuff… Mats and bags in a little pagoda in a park. This would be super unsafe in just about any Australian city, but in Japan it really is totally fine…
Early morning ferry across to Niigata, then a few hours later we boarded the twenty two hour ferry to Otaru. Little bit of shopping for better wet weather gear and some AMAZING fresh barbequed shellfish in the belly and we headed north east and ended the day at Ishikari where we camped behind The Salmon Factory…
Then inland toward Daisetsu-san National Park, stopping at the tiny town of Takikawa with its onsen and nice little camp ground on the river…
The following day we made it as far as Minami-Furano where we had a great feed in the michi-no-eki restaurant and camped on the grass once it had gotten dark enough…
Hokkaido is big… Anyone heading to Japan (on a bicycle or otherwise) should keep in mind that the maps for Hokkaido are usually in a different scale to the rest of the country and it is very easy to underestimate distances… We were never going to make it to Daisetsu-san so we headed south to go visit a friend in Obihiro…
Couple of days of sightseeing, great food, too much beer and sake and a little bike servicing and we rolled south toward Erimo Misaki… Rogue camp at a closed campground along the way…
Nice early start made for a nice early camp at the beautiful Erimo campground… We didn’t oftern have the chance to just hang out and read and relax at the end of a days ride, so it was nice to make the most of the afternoon sun…
Another amazing camp, this time with a park golf course, onsen and michi-no-eki close by…
Couple of days of truly bad weather we to follow so with some help from the ever generous Japanese hospitality industry (a blog post about these amazing people is coming) we stayed in a small onsen hotel in the industrial city of Mukawa then made our way to Noboribetsu Onsen where we stayed two nights in a gorgeous little Ryokan style hotel…
The cetral west of Hokkaido is stunning, and we camped a couple of days at Toya-ko, exploring the lake and it’s surrounds…
Northward toward the skiing mecha of Niseko, we camped at the base of Yotei-san… Starting to get a little cold now that we are in mid October. That is snow up on the summit…
Through Niseko, and downhill most of the way to Otaru where we boarded the even longer ferry ride south to Maizuru, the headed west along the San-in coast. There is a story about the roads that linked all these camp sites coming soon, but the San-in coast was some of the most beautiful scenery of the trip… Another abandoned camp ground along the San-in…
The San-in is littered with small caostal fishing villages and stunning subtropical feeling beaches…
So many times in Japan it is hard to find a piece of flat ground to camp on and when you do, it’s often a bit unorthodox… Super windy spot by lake that took us an hour to find…
We left the San-in and headed south toward Onomichi and the Shimanami-kaido cycle road that leads across the islands to Shikoku… Our map showed a camp ground that seemed to be NEAR Osa-san… Upon asking locals we found out that it was at the SUMMIT of said Osa Mountain… A long roll up the mountain in the fading light brought us to desertion. A campground that looked as though no one had stayed there for years…
There was however, a huge wooden building that looked as though it was used for school camps… The door was open. we put mats down in a nice tatami room and cooked in the kitchen as a big storm passed us in the night. Might have been more comfortable in the tent though as the building creaked and groaned in the wind and was a bit eery…
Shimanami Kaido was one of the parts of the trip I was most looking forward to… The dedicated cycle routes crosses six small islands on its way to Shikoku… Like I said, there’s a post coming about roads and this one is abot camping…
Rogue camp on the island of Innoshima…
Across the bridges and islands with a youth hostel stay on the way and we arrived in Shikoku… We headed through Imabari and camped at the local grass skiing and luuge place…
Shikoku is great, and I cannot wait to show you all some of roads we travelled here, but like I said earlier it is SO hard to find flat places to camp… Disabled car spaces at michi-no-ekis are pretty flat though. And under cover so you can pitch inner only…
South again, over Shikoku Karst which was pretty cool even though the weather was rubbish… Dooooowwwwnnnn to Yusuhara and a great little onsen and campground…
From here we had a couple of days in Kochi with my good friend Riki and his family. I’ll introduce you to them in a couple of weeks.
I was very much looking forward to the Iya Valley, and the riding and camping didn’t disappoint. Our man Yuuki, who lives in Shikoku also came and joined us for a few days hanging out…
The autumn was really in full swing by now and the Iya river was stunning… We went in search of a campground on our econd night here but failed and instead made house in a hikers hut at the base on a popular climb… We had to share it with two very noisy old men, but it was better than being out in the inch deep ice that was covering everything when we woke…
The roll from Iya to Tokushima is a contender for decent of the trip… Quiet, unmarked roads that drop almost 2000 metres… We camped in a park opposite the michi-no-eki in Tokushima, our last camp with Yuuki and had a beer and some food…
Ferry to Wakayama then a short roll south to a camp in Kimiidera Park…
We were starting to feel a little pressed for time, and decided to make straight across Kii-Hanto and shoot the city of Toba… Kii Hanto is a place I am definitely going back to explore, and the camping along the way (while hard to find) was pretty nice…
we reached the pearl harvesting city of Toba and took the ferry across to Irago and the final leg of our journey… Like most of the campgrounds in Japan outside of peak season, the Irago ground was closed. Rogue camp in a park by the wharf worked out no problem though…
The next week was a Tour de Fuji… This thing is amazing, and he’s got his own post coming… You’ve seen pics from here already, but Miho Beach camp was great…
Day Two of rolling around Fuji took us to Fuji City… I still can’t decide if a massive city at the base of one of the worlds largest active volcanoes would be a beautiful or a scary place to live, but it was very nice to visit… Nowhere to camp in the rain though, so we put mats down on the floor at what we named the Mega-no-eki… Twenty four hour restaurant, cinema and planetarium…
We headed around Fuji in a clockwise direction, making out way to the tourist area of Fuji Five Lakes…
First night’s camp was at Fujinomiya… Inner only camp at the michi-no-eki… It was cold, maybe around -2 that night, but we were prepared for it and slept well…
For two nights we camped on the shores of Lake Saiko… You can JUST see Fuji poking up over the ridge…
The next couple of days we stayed in a hotel on the shores of Lake Kawaguchi and explored the local markets, museums and the local brewery…
Last camp of the trip before we rolled back into Hachioji was at the Yamanaka michi-no-eki… Super cold outside, but the floor inside the farmers market was enclosed and warm and I slept great…
And we were at the finish…
We actually camped about 50 times on this trip, so the above ‘trip report’ is super compressed and there are a few pics left over…
Anyone thinking about Japan as a destination for a cycle tour, or a holiday in general, should just get on it. You’re always made to feel same and welcome and the ease of travelling comfortably at a really low cost is amazing… If you got any questions, as usual, just get in touch…
Shirane-San…
Rosie looked at the map of our planned route for the day for a moment… No doubt the hills of the previous few day’s riding through the Gunma Prefecture north-west of Tokyo were still on her mind…
‘That road looks fucked…’
Breakfast this day was in the small agricultural village of Kuni. Kuni has an onsen, a small michi-no-eki and that’s about it. After a long soak in the sulphurous goodness, our first of the trip, we set the tent up free standing in the onsen carpark because there literally was not another flat surface within a kilometres ride in either direction…
The morning ritual of getting the tent dry, getting packed and getting sunscreened out of the way and we were on the road. Straight away, the road headed upwards… If you have a look at said ‘fucked’ road on the map above you’ll notice Kuni at about 750 metres elevation… Our goal for the day was to reach 2172 metres, then decend off the back to Yamanouchi on the outskirts of Nakano… Long day on loaded bikes, especially this early in the trip…
We were both feeling the climbing on the first few days, which took us from the small city of Chichibu, through Tomioka and over Haruna San and her crater lake… Making sure we were eating enough was going to be something we were going to have to keep an eye on to avoid mega hunger flats… Like this one…
By the time we reached Kusatsu, Rosie was running on empty… Lucky for us (and for anyone riding a bike around in Japan) the convenience stores there are AMAZING… Chances are if you feel like it and it isn’t a meat pie you can get it. And it will be cheap and yummy… Gyoza and a strawberry milk? No problem… DOUBLE hot dog and a beer? Done…
The convenience stores really are one of the things that make Japan a great place for cycle touring. There were very few days where we were required to carry more that a days food… Try that in Australia!
From Kusatsu the road continued up, without really any kind of break, to the peak of Shirane-San… Twenty one kilometres of climbing probably doesn’t sounds like a whole lot of fun to most (Rosie definitely wasn’t looking forward to it) but it surprised us both… The immaculate hot mix road snaked it’s way up from Kusatsu, through a few kilometres of densely wooded forest and then spat us out on the upper slopes…
That’s at about the 1700 metre mark… From there it was an hour of horrible smelling sulfur vents and the crazy contrast between the lush green and the exposed, smoking earth that accompanies them… Hard to describe how cool a place this was to be on a bicycle…
Aaaannnndddddd up some more…
From there it was past the crater (which isn’t actually at the top) and up again to the peak…
Five or so hours of climbing since Kuni, and we arrived at the windy summit…
It always seemed unfair to me that five hours climbing equates to only about thirty five minutes descending, but man, WHAT a thirty five minutes… I filmed this descent but my little Canon point and shoot just couldn’t handle the g-forces and the footage isn’t worth watching… Hot mix and hairpins and almost zero traffic all the way down…
Being our first real encounter on the trip with volcanoes, things like this still made us go ‘Whhaaa???’
And then we were at Yamanouchi where a michi-no-eki urban camp, a new friend and some cold beer awaited us…
Stay tuned, more soon…
A Therapy For Pain 