I Tried Cycling the Length of Japan: 3,000km and 27 Days on the Road | Long Way North

Japan is known for many good things. Bullet trains, sushi, Mount Fuji. But cycling is not one of them. It should be. Ever since I moved to Japan in 2016, I had this itch to try and cycle the length of the country. From the humid jungles of the south to the mountains of the frozen north. Come to Japan in May, they said. The weather will be nice, they said. To meet new friends and old on the hunt for the best food that Japan has to offer. Be careful on the roads. A man got eaten four days ago by a bear. And discover the kind of remote, unvisited places that few people get the chance to see. It is so unbelievably beautiful on this coastal road. So in May of 2024, I set out to cycle the length of Japan. From the southern shore of Kyushu to the northernmost point of Hokkaido. 3,000 kilometers and one month of cycling across one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Our journey begins not on a bike, but an old single carriage train on an overgrown railway following the coast south to Mount Kaimon, a dormant volcano at the southern tip of Japan. It is a windy old day in Japan and we're here down on the southern coast of Kyushu. We have just climbed the 924 meter Mount Kaimon. And now that our legs are warmed up, we have just one mission and that mission is to cycle to the very northern tip of Japan, 3,000 kilometers away. We have one month to do it, 100 kilometers a day. Let's see how it goes. For the next four weeks, we'd be following a route that I'd sketched out while living in Tokyo as a journalist for the Japan Times. In theory, the plan was simple. Ride almost 3,000 kilometers across all four of Japan's main islands to the top of Hokkaido. Revisiting some of my favorite places in Japan and many remote rural areas that I'd never had the chance to visit. But I'd never attempted a cycle anywhere near this ambitious before. 100 kilometers a day, every day for a month in a country that is 75% mountains. So I'd enlisted the help of my friend Tom, one of the most capable travel companions I know and someone whose love for a good adventure is only eclipsed by his appreciation for Japanese snacks. Tom, we're about to leave, how are you feeling? Very contented and optimistic. It was really delicious. With Tom happy and our final prep complete, it was time to be off. So we set our compasses due north and started out through the freshly planted rice paddies and humid jungle of southern Kagoshima Prefecture. The whole of Japan lay before us, our adventure ahead unknown. With the wind at our backs, it was a breezy first day. Off in the distance, we could see Sakurajima, Japan's most active volcano, gently erupting in Kagoshima Bay. But the good weather would not last. As we tucked into the first huge bowl of ramen of the trip, a storm was brewing. I think we're good. Showtime? Showtime. I think this is the wettest I've ever been on a bike. It is damp beyond belief. We woke up on our second morning to flood alerts and warnings of landslides in the mountains. Huge rain drops fell from seemingly innocuous clouds, soaking us through. May is supposed to be the sunniest month in Japan, but as we dragged ourselves over the mountains north of Kagoshima, everything was water. It was the first big test for our legs and morale and the waterproofing of our saddlebags. At least there were some creatures that seemed to be enjoying the rain. This is actually a rice paddy, and the whole thing is lined with the sound of toads. The toads were clearly croaking for better weather, and it was working. As we crossed into Kumamoto Prefecture, the promised sunshine arrived. Above us, the bullet train roared through the valley, ferrying passengers effortlessly across the country. We took off after it in chase, but could never quite catch up. Still, we were handsomely rewarded for trying. Lovely little treat at the side of the road. A very full tree of ripe oranges. Absolutely delicious. Just had a couple, like a little halftime tea in a rugby game. From Yuzu to Buntan, there are a hundred varieties of citrus fruits that grow on the sunny slopes of southern Japan. For us, the oranges were like rocket fuel, and we were now well on our way to Kumamoto, a city that's best known for its castle, which was lovingly rebuilt stone by stone after a huge earthquake in 2016 reduced its walls to rubble. Kyushu is famous for its hot springs, and at the very center of the island is Mount Aso, a super volcano that blew its top off 100,000 years ago and continues to provide hot water to the bathhouses across the island. Where the mighty mountain once stood is now the Aso Caldera, a fertile crater that is home to 20,000 people who live and work in the shadow of Japan's largest active volcano. So we have been cycling through the Aso Caldera, one of the biggest volcano craters in the world, for the last hour or so, climbing gently upwards. And to get out of the crater now, we have to climb the giant wall of mountains up ahead. So climb the giant wall of mountains we did, following the beautifully surfaced road to the top of the mountain pass. Japan is a nation of great mountains and great road builders, and the two often go hand in hand. Hot and cold! Out of the caldera and over the pass, we descended into a sleepy mountain village called Takeda. There we made new friends in the bathhouse and filled our stomachs with hot pot. Now almost 400 kilometers since we first left the southern shore. It's day four, no, it's day five of the journey. Wow, time is flying. And I'm walking down a very pretty little high street in a town called Takeda in Oita Prefecture. My face is starting to shrivel up like a dried plum. Anyways, it's our last day on Kyushu, which is kind of hard to believe that our first island is almost done. After four days of climbing, we were now on the downward slope. We were bound for Asuki, a harbor town on the east side of Kyushu, where we'd board a ferry to Shikoku. Lovely, lovely day. About 110 kilometers in total today, and it's a beaut so far. Kyushu had been the perfect playground for us to acclimatize to the long days in the saddle. And with five days now behind us, I was starting to believe that we could make it to Hokkaido. But this was just the beginning of our adventure. Across the sea, Leshikoku, and two and a half thousand kilometers of cycling to reach the top of Japan. We have made it to Shikoku, the smallest of Japan's main four islands. Population about three million. We're going about 70 kilometers now to Matsuyama, which is the biggest city on Shikoku. Should get there hopefully by around 6, 7 p.m. tonight. Shikoku is best known as the home of the 88 temple pilgrimage, and its hidden valleys were once a favorite place for samurai in exile to escape from their enemies. Even now with 21st century infrastructure, much of the island feels wild and remote. Our route to Matsuyama took us along the northwest coast of Shikoku, tracing the cliffs between the fishing villages of the inland sea. There was hardly a breath of wind to speak of, and the water was like glass, totally serene. Genuinely, this might be one of the nicest bits of cycling I have ever done. It is so unbelievably beautiful on this coastal road. I couldn't be happier. As golden hour turned to dusk and then into evening proper, we rolled into Matsuyama and the welcoming arms of jazz promoter and chef extraordinaire Hisa at his hotel, Dogoya. Just a few kilometers in, I was already enamored with Shikoku. Dogoya used to be the storehouse for Dogo Onsen, one of the oldest hot springs in Japan and the inspiration for the bathhouse in the Studio Ghibli film, Spirited Away. Hisa has transformed the storehouse into a beautiful hotel, complete with a mural of the seven lucky gods and pictures of his seven favorite reggae musicians. And then there was breakfast, local vegetables, rice and eggs, all hand prepared by Hisa. We couldn't ask for better. This is kale and komatsuna leaf with small sardine fry. It was a good morning, so good in fact that we didn't leave Matsuyama until 3 p.m. We spent the day making friends with Kenji, the bike mechanic, who fixed our bikes and gave us recommendations for all the best restaurants en route that day. And then we visited Matsuyama Castle, built in the 1600s and perched high on a hill in the middle of the city. The temptation to stay in Matsuyama for another night was strong, but we had a schedule to keep and the open roads of Shikoku were calling. Quite late, but we have made it to Kenji's recommended economy after that shot. It's delicious. Long, scary-ass looking tunnel, but you know what tunnel means, generally. Tunnel snacks. I was gonna say top of the hill, rest of the hill. So the other side of that little sort of death pit is a nice, real fountain of sea. Good luck. Apart from the scary tunnels and occasionally murderous trucks, Shikoku was mostly quiet farmland and citrus groves. It really felt like we were only scratching the surface and in the mountains to our south lay wilder parts that we were sad not to be able to explore. Our route followed the valley, crossing back and forth over the Yoshino River, underneath a big open sky and the blazing sun. Halfway through a very hot day seven. Sun is out in full force. Really crippin' us today. Done about 60K so far. 50K to the port. Just had a nice lunch at old 7-Eleven. Delicious. Definitely got the athlete's premium over the total weight. We were fast approaching Tokushima and the ferry that would take us across to Honshu, the largest of Japan's four main islands. Two and a half days wasn't nearly enough to explore the island properly and we left Shikoku wanting more. But Honshu was waiting and the only way forward was north. You wanna see some smock? Yeah. You ready for this? Crack it. Adorated content. Oh my goodness. Good morning from day eight of the cycle ride. We are cycling to Koya-san. And Koya-san is the big temple complex in the middle of Wakayama Prefecture. Started off with one temple founded by the monk Kukai in 819, so 1,200 years ago. And it's now developed into a center of Shingon Buddhism. The only problem with getting to said center of Buddhism is that it sits atop a mountain, a thousand meters of climbing to get to the temples of Koya-san. However, before we could even consider the climb, we met a lovely family. Keita, Junko, and their three children who own a restaurant called Sakana Store in the small village of Katsuragi. It was a Sunday and the restaurant was closed but they opened it up for us and fed us a lunch of wild deer sausages and homegrown salad. Once we were done playing with Transformers and eating our lunch, it was time to climb. And Tom, with a newly acquired frying pan in his saddlebag, quickly began to unravel. What are you cackling at? I've lost my mind. Our minds might have been going, but with seven days of riding under our legs, we blitzed through the rest of the climb up to Koya-san and made it to Rusenen, the temple we were staying at, just in time for curfew. For dinner, we were served Shorjin Ryori, Buddhist vegetarian food eaten by monks and guests alike. Throughout, the temples are austere and tranquil. And to the sound of gentle rain, we were asleep by 9pm. We start day nine of the cycle ride in a very wet and very grey Koya-san. We're currently in the graveyard, which is dedicated to Kukai, the monk who founded Koya-san back in the 800s. And it is said that he is still in eternal meditation in the sanctuary in the middle of the forest. I don't want to complain too much, but it'd be nice to get some sun. Unfortunately, sun was in short supply at Koya-san, and it was a long and cold descent of the rain along narrow forest roads slippery with moss. But the monks at the temple had promised us better weather in the afternoon. And by the time we made it down to the valley floor, their forecasting skills were proved right. The good weather was set to last into the next few days. Fed by the rain, the landscape had taken on a brilliant green, an antidote to the saddle sores that were now developing on our bums. And as we worked our way through the tea fields of southern Honshu, there was barely a car on the road. It felt like we had the world to ourselves as we got closer and closer to the grand shrines of Ise. It is seven in the morning, the start of day 11 of the cycle ride. We're beginning here at Ise Jingu, probably the most holy Shinto shrine in Japan, home to the emperor's sacred mirror, and supposedly here since about the 3rd century. The grand shrines of Ise is dedicated to Amaterasu, the Japanese sun goddess, and it is one of the best kept places on earth. Every surface is meticulously cleaned and raked, and the main shrine is rebuilt every 20 years to stop decay. In the grounds, there is a revered hush, and as we walked, the sound of gagaku, imperial court music, drifted through the forest. After leaving the shrine and a quick ferry across Ise Bay, our immediate priority was to find lunch. And at the ferry port, we stumbled across a string of restaurants serving the catch of the day, elegantly arranged fish over rice, and the biggest oysters either of us had ever seen. It tastes like an oyster. It was lucky we found this restaurant because we were now turning inland and beginning almost a week of climbing across the Japanese Alps. Good seafood would have to wait until we made it to the other side of the mountains and down to the northwest coast of Honshu. It is day 12 of the cycle ride, and our destination today is Nakatsugawa. We are cycling about 99 kilometers, and it's a very hilly route. We are today starting to get into the foothills of the southern Japanese Alps. Even as its countryside depopulates, Japan loves to build new roads and new tunnels that make old roads and old tunnels obsolete. Entering these old tunnels is like going through the wardrobe into Narnia, taking you into a fantastical world that is only accessible for a brief period of time. Sometimes you luck out with an unused road that is still clear of debris, other times you end up in the construction site for a new mega-dam, or find a road washed away by a landslide. Nature will eventually reclaim these old roads and they will be lost to history, but for us, each one was a new side quest as we worked our way across the Alps. Eventually we joined up with the Nakasendo, an old walking road used in the 17th and 18th centuries by Japan's ruling class to travel inland between Tokyo and Kyoto. Villages known as post towns popped up along the road to service the travellers, some of which, like Magome, are still well preserved today. Today is the big stage, the queen stage. We are cycling 117 kilometres, 2,100 metres up, through one of my favourite valleys in Japan, which is the Kiso Valley. We're heading up to the post town villages of Magome and Sumago, which are old, beautifully preserved mountain villages. A lot of big climbs today, but it's a beautiful day for it. As we continued north, the mountains around us rose to over 3,000 metres and for the first time, we could see snow up on the high peaks. After a long day of climbing and with the sun beginning to set, we made it at last to Matsumoto, the largest city in the Alps and the end of our second week of cycling. That's one for the rest day. We've made it to the Sambon Daki waterfall near Mount Norikura. One of many running down from the snowpack above. Can't quite believe it, we've been cycling for two weeks now. Yesterday, we had a lovely rest day. Now, we are back on the road, getting some kilometres under our legs and we are cycling today to the ski town of Nozawa Onsen. I think my saddle sores have improved slightly with the rest day. My legs are certainly feeling good for it, but we'll see for how long that continues. My saddle sores might have improved a bit, but after two weeks of riding, we were both pretty low on energy and the good feelings in my legs lasted for all of about five minutes. Our rest day in Matsumoto marked the halfway point of the trip, but two long days of climbing still separated us from the coastal flats of northwest Honshu. As we climbed, the architecture of the houses around us began to change, adopting steeper roofs to fend off the winter snow and long chimneys for their log burners. It all felt a very long way from the humid slopes of Mount Kaimon, where we'd started our ride two weeks earlier. With burning legs, we made it to Nozawa Onsen, a ski resort that is famous for its 13 free bath houses. The water here is scorching and usually the domain of leathery octogenarians with decades of practice, but we'd arrived in the off-season, the town was deserted and we had the bath houses to ourselves. We were coming up to the end of our time in the Alps and fast approaching the flatlands of Niigata Prefecture, a long slog of a ride through the rural industrial fringe of the country. After five big days of climbing through the Alps, we were exhausted, a feeling not helped by the pervasive grey of the Niigata countryside. It sucks, the whole thing sucks. We haven't seen any of it, but I can tell it sucks and we're going now and I don't know why we're filming because we should be cycling away from Sanjo. Even stumbling across the make-your-own-rice-cracker factory failed to raise the mood much. If there was a low point to the trip, this was it. Stopped for a snack, lovely little onigiri rice ball. Feeling pretty damn tired today. I feel like the weather reflects the mood, it's just grey, grey, grey. Northern Niigata Prefecture now. Really don't know much about this area. And I can kind of see why no one really comes here that much. It is flat, it is grey, there's really not much going on. But Northern Niigata wouldn't let me wallow in my despair for long. And just 100 kilometers around the proverbial corner, we reached a dilapidated and depopulating hot spring town called Tsunami Onsen, and the beginning of one of the greatest stretches of road in the whole of Japan. Good morning from the start of day 17 of the cycle ride. It's a glorious day. We'd discovered Route 7, which runs the length of the west coast of northern Honshu, and the weather gods smiled down upon us. Even Tom falling off his bike and getting a puncture couldn't tent the mood, as we pushed north towards the port city of Sakata. We are entering the city of Sakata. Still an absolutely gorgeous day. And the gift that keeps on giving up ahead of us now is Mount Shokai. It's absolutely stunning. Here he comes, the short shorts getting even shorter. Inch by inch, day by day, we creep up. How's the wounds? That one's okay. This guy, I can't really get to it, but that one hurts. The north of Honshu is home to some pretty remarkable, and some would say cultish, religious practices. In Aomori Prefecture, there is the unofficial burial site of Jesus Christ. And in the mountains around Sakata are the Sokushin Butsu, Buddhist priests who self-mummified themselves to achieve enlightenment. Few people visit this part of Japan, and it's not hard to see why. It's remote, it's sparsely populated, and it's not well-connected to Tokyo. But on a good day, you see why so many people search for enlightenment here. It's absolutely beautiful. We are just leaving a little mountain village called Kazuno. Had an excellent, an excellent, a truly excellent night at a small guest house called Yazuka. Completely vegan, amazing husband, wife, chef, hotelier team put together such a good meal for us, both dinner and breakfast, and sent us on our way to Aomori just now with warnings of bears in the mountains. They said, be careful on the roads, a man got eaten four days ago by a bear. It was our last day in Honshu, and we were racing to get to Aomori, where we'd catch one last ferry across to Hokkaido. But before we could get there, it was back into the mountains and into bear country. As Japan's countryside depopulates, there are more and more encounters with wildlife as the border between the human and the natural world becomes hazy. Boars are a nuisance for farmers, but bears can be dangerous, especially to people who go out foraging in the woods for bamboo. Luckily for us, none appeared, and we had the mountain roads all to ourselves. The forest is so lush all around. Beautiful shades of green. Real pleasure to climb through. Oh, this cycle ride was such a good idea, even when you're going uphill on tired legs. Japan, such a lovely place to cycle. Such, such a good place to cycle. Things only got better from there. Over the crest of the hill, we could see Aomori 500 meters below us, and the road to get there, well. But even as Honshu gave with one hand, it took with the other, and it seemed almost determined to keep us from leaving. Descended from the mountains onto the plains of northern Aomori prefecture. Savage headwind. It's really sapping the strength. We're technically going downhill, but it feels like we're getting up. Still, race on to get this ferry. Two hours till it departs. We're currently two hours and 10 minutes away by bike. Gotta push on through. With hardly a second to spare, we made it to the ferry at Aomori port, the gateway to Hokkaido, and the final week of our adventure. We'd cycled over 2000 kilometers now, but had some of the toughest riding still ahead of us, on Japan's wildest and most remote island, Hokkaido. How are you doing? How are you feeling? I'm feeling really good. I just had like one of the most blessed sauna experiences of my life. That sauna was over-engineered for this hotel, that's for sure. There's a sauna enthusiast on the board of directors of this hotel, that's for sure. The Google map says that we're riding for eight hours today. 120K. But I don't think we're going to be that bad. I think we're going to fly. I'm only worried about being sore in strange places. It's time to introduce a couple of new characters to the trip. We'd made it to the city of Hakodate at the southern tip of Hokkaido, and there we were joined by my friends Trent and Kaz, who I'd met climbing Mont Blanc in 2019. Both of them were first-time cyclotourers who'd rented e-bikes in Sapporo and hauled them onto the southbound train to come and meet us. Our team of two was now a gang of four, all headed north together. For almost half the year, Hokkaido is buried deep in snow, and the roads are impassable by bicycle. Sensibly, we'd arrived at the turn of the season. It was almost June and spring was in the air. It was the perfect first morning for Kaz and Trent to get acquainted with their new e-bikes. As we cycled around the forested slopes of Mount Komagatake and down to Uchiro Bay, the air was thick with the smell of manure. Hokkaido supplies around a quarter of Japan's food, and all around us, farmers were busy planting their fields to make the most of the narrow summer growing season. As our first day of cycling as a group of four drew to a close, Tom and I were feeling good, used to life in the saddle. Kaz and Trent were dealing with their first day like champions, their e-bikes helping them over the long kilometres. Or so I thought. There's a waffle-sized part of my behind, my gluteus maximus, that is completely numb. So numb at one point that when I got off my bike, I had to ask myself whether I was urinating. Turns out I wasn't, but I had no idea. It was time to get Trent and Kaz into a nice hot bath. We were only 120 kilometres to Hokkaido, and there was much, much more to come. Good morning. We start day 22. In the rain at the Pirika Ski Resort. And today, our destination, Rissutsu, another ski town at the base of Mount Nyote. 101 kilometres to go, as Tom is pointing out ahead. 101 rainy, rainy kilometres. Hokkaido is known around the world for the quantity and quality of its snow. Niseko is the island's most famous ski resort, and in a good year, it'll get around 15 metres of snowfall, fuelled by the westerly winds that bring wet air off the Sea of Japan and dump it over Hokkaido's mountains. We had arrived just a few weeks outside of ski season, and with temperatures hovering around 10 degrees C, all that wet air meant a lot of rain, and we were at the centre of the storm. Come to Japan in May, they said. The weather will be nice, they said. It's anything but today. Windy, rainy, cold. Hokkaido is kicking my ass. All day, the grey clouds rolled in, bringing heavier and heavier rain with them. On days like this, the weeks on the bike suddenly seemed to compound, and my legs felt empty. Even Trent's big old smile and the views of Lake Toya weren't doing much to lift my mood. Two days in, and Hokkaido was pushing us to our limits. It is day 23 of the cycle ride, and today, a lovely short day, basically a half day. We are going 67 kilometres from Usutsu to Sapporo. The rain and the wind that was beating us up so badly yesterday has disappeared. Still grey, cloudy, but we do have a little bit of sun coming through. Looking forward to exploring Sapporo. Haven't been there for a while. Might try and hit up a couple of jazz bars tonight or small music venues, something like that, just to do something a little bit different from the day-to-day riding and actually see a bit of culture. After 10 days of cycling through some of the most remote parts of Japan, it was nice to be back in a major metropolis. The city of Sapporo, home to two million people and endless corridors overflowing with good restaurants, bars, and music. Top of the list was breakfast the next morning at the Sapporo Crab Market. Nice. You ready for some crab? You guys eat it? About to. Sit down. How is it? It's good. The crab market is most famous for serving snow crab, which is caught off the coast of Hokkaido, as well as all kinds of other seafood, including Tom's favourite, oysters. I don't know what time it is, but this is what we're having for breakfast. Giant king crab legs on a bed of crab. It was a breakfast of champions, and with full bellies, we peddled off from the market and joined the northwest coast of Hokkaido. This was the start of what my map said would be a long and beautiful stretch of coastal road, but I'd just been told I'd made a catastrophic mistake. I met with a friend in Sapporo yesterday, and I told her the route, and she said, oh, wow, that route has got a lot of tunnels. And I thought she was just being overly cautious, but I did a second scan on the route, and of the next 120 kilometres, about 30 to 40 kilometres of it is all in tunnels. So let's hope it's quiet, let's hope there's not many lorries, because otherwise it's going to be quite an uncomfortable journey for the next few hours. The road ahead of us had me seriously worried. Back in Shikoku, kilometre-long tunnels had nearly been the death of us. We now had 40 kilometres of tunnelled roads ahead, with no way to avoid them. But I didn't have been so concerned. The road was pretty much deserted, trucks and cars preferring the peaceful inland route to the stormy coast of western Hokkaido. Occasionally, the engine of a car would break the silence, roaring through the echoey tunnels behind us. But mostly, they were eerily quiet, boring deep into the cliffs of Hokkaido's western shore. It's 7pm, we're still out on the road, trying to get to our accommodation in Mashikei. Big late day, feels very, very remote. Barely any houses, barely any buildings. It's just us, the cliffs, the sea and the road. I'd love to know what this place is like in winter, when you've got snow all around and big storms crashing the waves into the edge of the road. Eventually, after what seemed like days in the tunnels, we made it to Mashikei, a frontier town that did not reveal itself to us until the next morning. Another cold and gloomy one in northern Hokkaido. This part of Hokkaido feels more like the cold shores of Scotland than anything else we cycled in Japan. We're really pushing far north now in Japan, and the northerly latitude shows. We were entering Japan's windy alley, a long, empty stretch of open land in the country's far north that is being turned into one large onshore wind farm. Unfortunately for us, that wind was pointed square in our faces, a 30-kilometer-hour headwind that seemed determined to stop us from finishing. Super windy last section to get to the top of Japan. Tough on the legs, great for renewals. These wind turbines are spinning. Looking out west, we could now see the snow-capped summit of Mount Mashiri, an island just 20 kilometers off Wakkanai, Japan's northernmost city. We were in the final stretch. We'd made it to day 26, our penultimate day on the bike. Up on the hillside, dressed in red, wasting the sunlight is only fair. Wrong in what you can't right with me. All day, Rishiri kept us company, guiding us ever closer to the finish line. When we arrived at Wakkanai, it marked the end of our last full day of cycling. Cape Sawyer, the finish line, was just 30 kilometers away. It was our last night all together as a team before we returned home, and time for one last celebratory dinner of sea urchin and scallops at the best izakaya in town. Oh, how it's hollowed, yonder's phantasy. Start of day 27, and for the last time on this trip, we are up and on the road, headed now for Cape Sawyer, Sawyer Misaki. It's calm, the wind's dropped. We've got a completely blue day above us. Should be 30 easy kilometers to get to Cape Sawyer. Our little victory lap. I am so excited. I'm so happy to have made it. Ah, what a glorious feeling. Such an amazing trip to Japan. After almost a month in the saddle, I couldn't quite believe we'd made it to the finish. We were exhausted but elated, and as we rounded the northern coast of Hokkaido, I thought about all that we'd achieved. Over the past 27 days, we'd cycled nearly 3,000 kilometers from the southern coast of Japan to its very northern tip. We'd eaten enough good food for several lifetimes and found ourselves in parts unknown and unloved. Through it all, we'd felt the generosity and hospitality of everyone we'd met, some of the most kind and gracious people who'd helped us out when we were down. We'd been blessed by the monks at Koyasan, gotten lost through the forgotten tunnels of the Japanese Alps, and discovered Tohoku's other coastline. It had been a grand, grand adventure, and we'd been shown a side of Japan that few people ever get the chance to see. But it was finally time to finish. It was all down to this last stretch of road, the final few kilometers, to Cape Sawyer. We've made it. Cape Sawyer, the northernmost point of Japan. Unbelievable. 27 days. How far, Oski? We're done. We've made it. It's been the ride of a lifetime. And if someone asked me, would you do it all over again tomorrow? The answer, an emphatic, emphatic yes. I've enjoyed this trip so, so much. And thank you to everyone who helped make it happen. It's been so, so special. Thank you so much. And from the northernmost point of Japan, I bid you goodbye. Make me forget all the wrong we have done And under the storm I will go home Warmth of the day Come find me All the terrors I've seen And gone are the secrets you keep from the night