Short passage through Shikoku

Where were we?... Well, 2 days ago we were waiting for our ferry from Okamura, as we had just missed the previous one. Once we were on the ferry it took less than 30' to get to our destination, the island of Omishima. This is where we would join the well known Shimanami Kaido cycling route towards Shikoku. We still had more than 20km ahead on Omishima first, continuing to ride on a very beautiful coastal road and unfortunately for us, with no options to find something for lunch. Until, just before getting to the Shimanami Kaido, we found a very small restaurant with a lovely garden terrace (one of the only ones we've seen in Japan at all), run by a lovely and super friendly old couple, and had a delicious set lunch! Ah, it was well worth the wait and the hungry stomach!

On the Shimanami Kaido, the blue lines clearly indicating the cycling lanes

Bicycle parking at a rest area

View over the route with one of the many bridges, from the beach at the rest area

The longest series of suspension bridges in the world, waiting for us to cycle over

Shortly after that delightful lunch, we started to ride the Shimanami Kaido, with much more cyclists than we had seen anywhere in Japan before (nice!), a very well done cycling route, good signs, good cycling lanes, still beautiful scenery and another few impressive bridges. The last one of those bridges, the Kurushima-Kaikyo bridge, is the longest series of suspension bridges in the world. It's truly impressive to see it and to ride on it, and the very turbulent waters below the bridge only add to that experience! After that bridge we rode into Imabari, the first city in Shikoku island. The Shimanami Kaido was definitely very nice, I would recommend it any time, although I would also recommend to combine it with the Tobishima Kaido as we did, because that route was really wonderful! From Imabari we found a potential campsite on Google Maps a good 10km beyond the town, which is where we headed and yes, we camped (although it was also wild camping with toilets and water available).

Still some very nice scenery on our way

A short exceptional stretch on Shikoku on small rural roads, through more quiet neighbourhoods, with big mountains looming in the background. This time, we won't go there...

The ride in Shikoku was not that interesting. Shikoku is a quite big island and it's not so densely populated, however most people live on the northern side - which is where we cycled; probably the other parts of Shikoku are much nicer. It was mostly cycling on busy roads, with bad bicycle lanes but the roads are a bit narrow and busy to ride in the road itself, and riding through several larger cities. So we rode from Imabari to Kanonji, camped close to the sea, and continued the next morning to Takamatsu to take a ferry to Kobe. These were 2 days of mostly "functional cycling" to get from point A to point B, just push those pedals and get it done with... We got up early today to make sure we caught the 2pm ferry, only to find out that the schedule had changed, and the next ferry was leaving at 8pm... So we enjoyed some good relax time in Takamatsu town, had pancakes and coffee, and an early dinner before heading back to the ferry - which was an udon dinner, with sanuki udon noodles which Takamatsu is famous for. We'll arrive around midnight in Kobe, will sleep in a hotel for a change, and then onto... the next destination!