Cycling Japan: Kyushu and Shikoku During Cherry Blossom Season // World Bicycle Touring Episode 43

Okay we're getting on the road in Fukuoka. Not sure how we're getting to Beppu which is our next destination but we'll figure it out. We're gonna slowly make our way over to kind of the Beppu Oita area and then take a ferry over to Shikaku. Ride Shikaku and then make our way up to Hokkaido on Honshu somehow. We hit the 30,000 kilometer mark on these bikes. We're doing our fifth roll-off oil change here. Pulling out the cleaning oil to put the new oil in. Got a little supermarket here in Japan and the new oil goes in. This city has these gorgeous flower arrangements just on the embankment of the road. Really nice to look at. Started the morning off with a big climb but it really paid off with an amazing descent. Really cool terraced hillsides and cherry trees and just spectacular views coming down this mountain. We found that sometimes it's best to just stick to the sidewalk through the Japanese towns. We could ride the shoulder but there's a lot of storm breaks and the sidewalk is really not too bad. Well we're off the highway on a really twisty fun descent through extremely dark forests. It doesn't seem like anyone takes this route. The road has a bunch of tree litter on it but it's just a fantastic descent. After miles on the highway this is just a great change of pace. There's lots of mirrors around every corner so you can make sure no one else is coming but so far we haven't seen a single vehicle Kind of a busy road but at least we have a little shoulder now. It's two lane going up. Beautiful mountain right in front of us though. Supposedly it's covered in pink flowers gale advisory today. We're supposed to take the ferry to Shikaku but that sounds a little bit sketchy so we'll see. The waves are supposed to be two and a half meters which does not sound fun and industrial facilities right here. Kind of sums up our Japanese experience so far. Lots of kind of industrial looking buildings and beautiful landscaping and cherry trees in every direction. It's an interesting contrast. We've arrived on Shikaku on an extremely windy and rainy peninsula and also I got a new rain shell that makes my head look like a mushroom. We've made it to Shikaku. Quite a bit of wind and rain. Gonna go check out a free campground. This is our microwave dinner from Lawson. We're eating it under the overhang so we don't have to set up our camp in the rain. After months of living in hotels in southeast Asia we're getting back in the swing of things camping here in Japan. It was a very windy and rainy night so we had to camp in this unused shelter for a campground that might not be open yet. We're not really sure but it works out well. Now Jenny's making some coffee. These cool little filter things are fun. We debated between taking the big highway that was going to be a lot less climbing and this smaller road on the ocean and immediately we have some really nice views and there's a little fishing village and a harbor and it's really gorgeous despite the rain camp and found this shelter. It's kind of in a park that we thought would have an actual campground but we couldn't find the campground. Got a pretty cool view out this way though. Starting the day with a climb out of our little campsite. Still lightly raining. It's been raining for like three days now. Having covered places to sleep makes it not quite so bad though. Jenny's still looking like a weird balloon mushroom thing. I don't think I'll get over her new cycling rain jacket for a while. We just got flagged down by a guy who was waiting for us on the side of the road. I guess he passed us earlier or something and he had like a liter of fresh orange juice, six oranges, and a couple lemons for us. Just awesome. People are wonderful here. We're currently riding the southwest coast of Chicago headed over to the east coast. We're not exactly sure how much of the coastline we're going to ride. It adds a lot of miles going in and out of every little peninsula and cove. Kind of reminiscent of the Wild Atlantic Way in Ireland. We may head inland but inland entails a lot of climbing so it's going to be a balance dozens of these little fishing villages for the past two days. Hasn't gotten old yet. They're just very quiet and peaceful and great views of the ocean. Very windy day today. Kind of swirling so we're getting headwinds and tailwinds. The sun is out after three days of rain but it's a little bit chilly. It's still early April so not quite hot but very good riding weather. We've left the coast and we're doing our first little jaunt inland. Not going to be too much climbing. About 4,000 feet over 40 miles. It's going to cut off a big chunk of coastline though and save us some time on our way north and it'll be interesting to see what the mountains are like. I wish I had a fishing pole. Hopefully there's some cool mountain streams that we get to camp near. Riding up this road and saw signs for this trail to a waterfall and it was really gorgeous. Just kind of in the middle of nowhere and yeah had a nice sunset waterfall hike. We've got a gorgeous mountain stream just to our left and we're riding through kind of a dark canopy with moss and ferns and little waterfalls coming down. Just a spectacular route through the mountains here. You try to take a smaller road that ends in grass and a dead end. I think we could technically still keep going but is it worth it when there's a low traffic highway right there? Probably not. It'd be fun though. We're kind of in the middle of the mountains so we found a nice little campsite. There's no stores or anything around so we have to filter some water and cook our own food and everything. So this is our gravity filter setup with a Sawyer squeeze going into Andrew's water bladder. We're starting the day off with a for this pass yesterday. It's always nice to just wake up and cruise downhill. Sometimes you feel like you're in the middle of the remote mountains but then there's a vending machine with hot coffee right on the side of the road. We're on day five of wild camping. After six months of staying in hotels in South Korea and Southeast Asia it's really nice to be in the tent again. There's just something so liberating about finding your own place to stay every night and just being kind of untethered from civilization camp this morning near the town of Shimanto. This is a free campground. Anybody can just kind of roll up and pitch a tent. It's just outside of town so we were able to ride into town and get some ramen last night. It's got a toilet and some picnic tables. It's just amazing free camping. Gotta love it. We're often kind of paralleling or on the 88 temple shikoku pilgrimage route so at times we get to see some of the stuff that's on the route. I don't know what the deal with this shrine is but it's pretty cool looking. We've made it back to the coast after our little inland ride. Cut off a good chunk of coastline shortening our trip across shikoku. We've been following highway 56 off and on since we've been on shikoku and right now we're in a little bit busier of a segment of it but luckily there's a nice sidewalk on the ocean side. Allows us to be separated from the cars and have a better view of the water. shikoku's third biggest city. We're gonna take a day off tomorrow check out the castle and do some sightseeing. We've been wild camping for seven days straight so it's gonna be nice to take a shower. Arriving in kochi trying to beat some rain. I think we might have done it only a half mile left. We're in kochi and we got a regional specialty which is a seared tuna. kochi and it's just really cool that even in such a populated area they've gone to a lot of lengths to make it possible to camp for free and get out into nature even when you're really close to the city. We had a short day coming out of kochi yesterday. I got a new shirt as you can probably tell. We left kochi yesterday and decided to follow the coast instead of going inland and following a river up into the mountains. For the time being we're just going to do the coastal route where there's less climbing but more overall miles. We're on the 88 temples pilgrim route here on shikoku and I guess that guy was jogging to the next temple. It's the first one wasn't windy at all when we put up the tent and it really picked up through the night. Getting a nice little hailstorm. First time in a long time that's happened. Kind of hurts. We're gonna take the ferry to wakayama tomorrow if everything goes according to plan. We're not sure what we're going to find on honshu. The back roads here on shikoku have been just incredible. Really easy to find. Very quiet routes like this. We're probably going to try and avoid the main population centers of osaka and kyoto but we have no idea which direction we're going to head once we get to wakayama so we're eventually going to have to make a decision but we kind of like waiting till the last minute. So mom and his clouds up there. We rode pretty much all day in the rain yesterday. Finally got everything dried out this morning and now Sad day. Both in the rear tire too. It can never be the front tire which is a lot easier to change. Today is our last day on shikoku and it's really been a big highlight of the trip. We've just been blown away by all the beautiful scenery and how kind the people are here so yeah it's been a great start to japan and we're excited to keep heading north.