The day started early yesterday, with noises in the park from around 6am. We heard voices, cars, car doors, people setting up tables or something like that, lots of activity. When we got up, by 7am, we saw dozens of retirees in the park, getting ready for some kind of tournament; it looked a bit like croquet, but not quite the same... In any case, it was funny, amusing, people were also amused to see us, they were welcoming, tried to have a chat with us, it would have been great to speak Japanese... We left early, as we had another long day to go, and it was a beautiful morning. After 10km we passed a public bath, and stopped for a quick wash - always nice when you go wild camping. It didn't really make sense, as we had a lot of kms to do, with several climbs, in warm weather, so we'd be sweaty and sticky by the end of the day anyway but still it was so nice to be clean for a while.
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People in the park coming together for some kind of tournament, great to see how they enjoy themselves together
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| It's so beautiful to cycle in the morning |
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| A quick stop at a public bath |
In fact, right after the bath we started climbing, quite steep. We climbed a bit more than 300m in 4km time, pretty heavy but fine and through some gorgeous scenery, fantastic cycling. Of course, the climb was rewarded with a superb downhill as well, and at the end of the downhill, a coffee break in the fields! We had a second climb, about as high as the first one, still nice but not as magnificent. By the time we got to Izumi and had a chance to buy lunch, we had already 60km under our belt, and it had been so beautiful. We went the Japanese way: just buy a lunch box at a convenience store (Family Mart in this case, but it could have been any of them...), get it heated in the microwave, and there you go! Cheap, easy, fast and tasty enough. We had heard/read from others that there are convenience stores everywhere and always in Japan, yet where we go it doesn't seem to be the case, so we always make sure we carry some food with us...
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| Incredibly scenic road |
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| Coffee break in a field of wildflowers |
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| You never get bored of cycling through this kind of scenery |
From Izumi the road was a bit less impressive, although still nice. We were reminded again that Kyushu is not flat - at all. There are lots of mountains, lots of climbing, and I'm pretty sure on a day like this we have climbed at least 1000m in total; with 101km distance covered again! Our record 122km day yesterday was similar, so it was a record distance with a lot of hill work too! Towards the end of the day we crossed an impressive bridge to Nagashima island, with a very narrow bicycle lane on the bridge, which we hardly passed through with our panniers. Once on this island we followed a coastal road, and while we hoped that would be a bit flat riding, it was a lot of steep up and down still. We rode until we got to a campground, which was closed - again. We found a really nice spot to pitch our tent near the beach, but a local came to talk to us and made clear he did not want us to camp there; we don't know whether he just did not like that, or whether he thought it was not good for us. In any case, he kindly pointed us to the closed campsite, and told us we should camp there - which we did.
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| The bridge to Nagashima |
Today we got up a bit earlier still, as we wanted to get to the ferry in time. Our tent was dripping wet this morning, because of morning dew, so we had to try to get it a bit dry before packing and leaving. We got to the ferry 5 minutes before departure but it all went very smoothly, and by 9am we were on Shimoshima island. We crossed Shimoshima island today, it was nice, easy riding, very beautiful, green, peaceful, rural mostly and: hilly but less than expected for once. Not bad to have a less demanding day after the previous 3 heavy weights... It was a pretty hot day too today, almost tropical. We tried to have a slightly more fancy lunch today, not convenience store style, and went to a good sushi restaurant, but were not allowed in. Not sure if it was too close to closing time, or whether they didn't like tourists in cycling clothes... So we had less fancy food, still simple sushi though. From there, we rode to the second ferry of the day, again nicely timed (coincidentally this time), and by 4pm we were back on main Kyushu island, on the Nagasaki peninsula.
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| The first ferry of the day in the early morning |
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| View on Shimoshima island |
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| Coffee break, with our tent fly out to dry |
We asked around for a place to camp and were pointed in the direction of a campground, which looked like a good place, we went there, and this time it was even open! So we're now in a real campsite, we've even paid for our place - a steep 3200 JPY (about 25 EUR) for a very simple place. It doesn't even have a shower - but we had a great hot bath in a public bath house nearby. Despite this, it's nice to be in a campsite, you're comfortable to stay there, leave your stuff behind, easy to plug in and charge all the electronics, etc. We had a less taxing day today, "only" 72km and less climbing, and it was needed... Tomorrow: Nagasaki, hotel, Jan and Christine!
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| We rode through quite a lot of tunnels on Kyushu, mostly they're well lit and often - but not always - there is a separate bicycle lane |
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| View from today's second ferry |
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| On the ferry |
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| Fantastic, these narrow streets in Japanese towns |
A nice note to end with today. Yesterday, I was 6 months on sabbatical! 6 months already, time flies like crazy! It have been fantastic months, I enjoyed every minute of it so far... We were also 150 days on the road; that is these 6 months, minus the days we spend with the kids in Koh Lipe and Australia, as we didn't cycle at all then for longer periods. Less than 2 months to go now before "normal" (define normal...?) life resumes, it'll take some time to get used to that I'm afraid...
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| Our first official (open) campsite |