It seems once every now and then, Kyushu gets a day of rain. We had one on the first day - a very wet one - and we had another day of rain yesterday. Compared to the first day, it was not too bad at all; it rained a lot of the time, but it was a drizzle, and there were moments it stopped. We had quite a few dry periods in the afternoon. Well, it started with rain most of the night, while camping. No problem, our tent can handle that, but of course it meant we had to leave in the morning with a very wet packed tent... Despite the rain, it was beautiful. The misty clouds gave mystical views over islands, mountains, villages, the sea... Very different views, and nice to enjoy for a little while.
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Misty and rainy, also beautiful for a (little) while
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| Misty, rainy sea |
We had a coffee break near a shrine, where we found some shelter from the drizzle. We had lunch in a convenience store, again sheltered. We rode until late afternoon, postponing a decision about camping or not until we had better indications about the weather. Most of the afternoon was OK, so we were hoping the skies would clear towards the evening, so we would camp. As we came closer to Karatsu, our intended destination for the day, it started to rain a bit more again, and so we decided to go for the comfortable solution and get a room in a hotel. Costly (incredible how much accommodation costs in Japan) but nice! Once we were in our room, we took a nice hot shower, donned the yukata and didn't leave the room anymore. We had our dinner with us, so we just enjoyed that in our room. The room was pretty big, especially to Japanese standards, so we used the opportunity to open our tent, and dry it inside the room!
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| Quite a beautiful shrine, the scene of our mid morning coffee break |
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| A wishes tree at the shrine |
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| More rainy day scenery |
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| In Karatsu, our destination for the day, after 83 drizzly kms |
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| Drying our tent in the room, and dinner |
It was a great night, and in the morning the sun was out again! We left happily and had some very beautiful cycling most of the morning, with slightly busy traffic but not too disturbing while the scenery was very nice again. At some point this morning, a small van overtook us, and a bit further it pulled over. A young man and his son got out of the van, and they quickly took some fruit out of the back and came running towards us, to give it to us! Wow, so amazing, they gave us some grapefruit and loquats, and the fruits were delicious! Just before this we had been thinking that the people the last few days had been a bit less friendly, as if we were less welcome, as if cyclists are weird and unwanted visitors, and then suddenly this happens! Throughout the day we also felt that people were much friendlier again, so was it us, was it the region? We also noticed that in these smaller towns, just like in Korea, there are mostly older people; maybe they are just shy, or maybe they are indeed a bit taken aback by these strangers on bicycles...
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| Breakfast on the rooftop terrace |
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| Another coffee break at a shrine, very different scenery this time however! |
Towards noon we were getting a bit closer to the Fukuoka urban area - effectively closing our loop around Kyushu - and for about 4 hours we "enjoyed" urban cycling... It was not too bad, and most of the time there were decent sidewalks to cycle on, intended to be used by cyclists. Of course we were happy after this long stretch of urban, busy cycling to get back into a more enjoyable and calm scenery. By the time we were starting to look for a place to camp, we met an American cyclist, Roger, who lived nearby. He rode with us for a little while and when asked if he knew a place to camp, he recommended us to take a ferry to a nearby island - which we didn't. Just minutes later, we met another guy on a race bike, with a flat tyre. He asked whether we had a pump (yes we do), and... he was from Belgium! I had noticed his cycling shirt, which had the name of a bicycle shop in Lommel of all places! Anyway, he was Antonio from Serbia, had lived in Belgium for more than 20 years and spoke good Flemish, now lived in Japan with his Japanese wife, and was going to move to Australia next year. His flat was very small and he had 4 children, otherwise he would have happily invited us to stay the night with his family! What a nice encounter, I'm sure it would have been a great evening too.
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| Our campsite for the night. Not bad!!! |
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| I haven't posted beautiful sunset pictures for too long, so here you go! |
We then cycled a bit further, and found a great place to pitch our tent on the beach near Munakata - after 85km cycling again today. We have toilets nearby, and we even had showers - cold, but they certainly did the job! And to complete it all, we were spoiled with a fantastic sunset. What a great day it's been - again!