Written by Dave

Tokushima to Minami (Hiwasa)  – Rolling Shikoku  (53k, 395m)

We had another slowish start today but still managed to be rolling by a little after 9AM. The husband owner was around this morning and there was lots of Google assisted chatting. I’m getting smart and sending Nancy in to take the lead on these conversations.

Today’s city riding lasted 20k, 7k longer than yesterday. There was more traffic than we expected for a Sunday. Our GPS took us off the main road into back streets and bikes paths a couple times. The main road was fine for riding but the back alleys were much more interesting. Some of the turns were down real goat tracks but we trusted the GPS and it all worked out. We had a couple nice temples and a little rice field riding that would have been just busy road otherwise.

We pulled over at a Lawson (convenience store) because we saw two clearly European looking touring bike set-ups. Inside we found Jenne and Anna, a nice couple from Holland on the Japanese part of 7 month tour that includes Korea, Japan and SE Asia. We had a nice visit and discovered that they are staying in the same inn as we are tonight. After they left, the worker lady in the Lawson came over and gave us two free cold waters – Nancy befriended her and discovered that her daughter lives in Arizona.

The road from there was still busy but traffic gradually thinned. Finally around 21k the highway split into a new expressway and an old highway. We obviously took the old highway. The next 30k were hillier but exactly what we had hoped to find in Japan and nearly traffic free. We saw lots of rice fields and traditionally styled Japanese homes. Many of the homes were overgrown and possibly abandoned. It’s hard to know if this was “generational abandonment” that we’ve read about in the international press or possibly just the fact that very little traffic takes the old road and all the shops and restaurants were closed. Whatever the cause, we thoroughly enjoyed riding a Japan road just like we had envisioned.

The motorway ended at Minami (old name Hiwasa) and suddenly there was some traffic again. It didn’t matter now, however, as we had reached our destination for the night. The main street in Minami was full of many restaurants advertising udon (Nancy is teaching me the Japanese characters). We were too early to check-in to our guesthouse so we had a late lunch and a nice bowl of udon.

After lunch we still had an hour to kill so we decided to visit the Yakuoji Temple – the most famous landmark here in town and one of the 88 temples on the Shikoku pilgrim walk. Yakuoji is a Buddhist temple known across the country as the temple where you go to pray to ward off evil spirits. It was very well maintained and quite impressive, though we definitely stood out from traditional pilgrims in our bright bike clothes.

We still had a half hour to kill so we stopped at a coffee shop on the way to our guesthouse. The guy working there knew how to make a proper coffee with both beans and water being measured with precision. The shop, or its roaster, had some connection with Gold Coast, Australia but we couldn’t quite follow as we moved into verbs Nancy has not yet studied. It was fun chatting regardless.

We finally made it to the guesthouse and got checked in. The owner is quite nice – she speaks Japanese, French, English and Spanish. She was raised in Tokyo but she ended here because her father was born here. It is a cute little village but it’s a long ways from Tokyo, or for that matter, London where she learned to speak English. We tried to book at a hostel next door and boy are we glad that didn’t work out. From the noise coming through our open windows, it’s party central there.

For dinner we joined Jenne and Anna at a restaurant just down the street. Sorry, the food was good but I missed getting a photo, too busy chatting. Jenne and Anna are a few years older than us and remarkably have cycled just about everywhere in the world where we have. We had a wonderful evening recounting tales of the road.

Tomorrow we don’t have any city riding but we’ve found a nice “goat track” looking road from here to the next town. Our inn keeper has confirmed that it is sealed and virtually car free. It travels along the coast and we’re really looking forward to some sea views. We just hope the road goes through like our inn keeper says it does.