Written by Dave

Kochi to Konoka Onsen – Gorges, bridges and a great Onsen to finish (64k, 900m)

Our bikes survived just fine locked in the outside car park. We should not have worried. In fact, there were 5 high-end bikes parked outside overnight – ours, plus one owned by a Korean chap (we never got his name) and two owned by a couple of Americans (Dick (70) and Tracy (68)). Dick Tracy – as they called themselves – are on a long trip from Korea to Osaka. We had fun swapping stories with them over brekkie.

We made it all of 1.3 k’s before our first stop today, at a bakery no less. Brekkie at the guest house was more than adequate but we weren’t sure what would be available for food up in the mountains so we plotted a course slightly off our GPS route to a bakery. The selection was great – so great that we each had a brekkie supplement croissant because they looked so nice.

We followed the GPS mostly out of the city and were pretty happy with its routing. Eventually, however, we tired of ducking off the main road for 500 meter side streets diversions as Komoot tends to do and just stuck with the main road. There was very little traffic so it was completely safe.

Pretty much as soon as we broke free from the city we turned on to Highway 194 heading up over the mountains. “Up” is a stretch as for the first 20k, while we were clearly riding up a river gorge, it was very gentle and we had a strong tailwind. It was pretty easy work, except it was heating up already so we were sweating. It was still cooler than the last few days though – you could really start to feel the mountain air.  The river was pretty wide down low and there were a lot of kayakers and fishermen about.

At the 25k mark we saw a cute building with interesting signs – turned out to be an ice cream shop. It was just before 11 and they only opened at 11 but we started chatting with an Aussie lass in the car park and we killed enough time to stall for the opening. It was so nice to hear a real Aussie accent. She was here with her Japanese husband and young daughter, visiting the in-laws.  We leap-frogged them up the gorge a couple times. By last time was saw them we were fast friends with their 4 and half year old (Hanna). As for our iced coffees, well, see below. No way we earned them by that point but they were worth it.

We are not sure what gorge we were in all day. There is a famous gorge that goes between Kochi and Matsuyama (Yasui gorge) but the road to Matsuyama turned off around 20k into out ride. We stayed with the 194 and wow, it was something.  Classic Japanese scenery with rice growing on terraced hills up off the river and little enclaves of houses set off the side where there was any room to build between the mountains and the river. 

There were also several hydro power stations – not terribly big, but enough to keep the water low in the river in some stretches.  While the water is currently low, you can see from the rocks and boulders in the river and the banks that the water must get flowing pretty swiftly at some points during the year.

After the first 30k or so we turned left on 194, off shared routes Highways 439 and 194.  There were a couple of breaks where it flattened out a bit but we were both pushing in our lowest gear for the next 16k.  Thankfully there were lots of switchbacks and the traffic wasn’t too bad – though there were a surprising number of big trucks on the road at the lower elevations.  We had at least three tunnels we knew about, though there ended up being quite a few shorter ones as well.  We had tried to suss out some options to get around the longer tunnels, as it appeared they would be uphill.  As it turned out, none of those options were necessary, as traffic was minimal and we had a decent footpath on the longest tunnel so we could get away from the cars.  And none of them were at a significant gradient – actually felt like a bit of a rest after all that climbing to get up to them. The three long tunnels were all over 1k, with the longest at 1.4k. (note: tomorrow we have 4.5k tunnel – phew!)

While not riding the famous Yasui Gorge, we were pretty darn happy with our chosen route. In planning mode, I’ve been looking at Highway 194 for many months, wondering if it would be rideable. Well, it was very rideable and a blast.

We arrived at Konoka Onsen about 2:30 and headed straight to the michinoeki restaurant.  We were both famished as we hadn’t really had any lunch – all of those baked goods remained in our bags while we climbed.  Two bowls of ramen and some extras hit the spot.  We then got checked in and a nice lady from the onsen came out to greet us (and I think mostly to be sure we were following proper footwear protocol!).  We were shown a good place in a hallway to store the bikes and took all of our bags up to our tatami room, which turned out to be surprisingly nice.

After having a cup of coffee, we took on the challenge of our first onsen.  We were provided with pajamas (instead of a yukata) and towels, so we tried to look like we fit in as we headed down to the separate baths.  We both figured out roughly what to do by furtively watching others and I think we made it through without any significant gaffes.  It sure does feel nice to sit in that hot water after a long day of climbing!

Though the fellow told us when checking in that the restaurant was open until 7pm, it is completely shut at 6pm so thankfully we have our left over bakery goods that we can have for dinner.  Actually neither of us is too hungry after the big late lunch, so all should be fine.  We did reserve breakfast in the restaurant at 7am, so hopefully that will go off as planned.

Tomorrow, we have a longer day planned to take us onto a famous cycling route, the Shimanami Kaido. We are only riding 3 of the 7 islands but have another slightly less famous cycle route the next day. But before all that, we have to climb the last 3k of the mountain pass we are on, followed by the aforementioned 4.5k summit tunnel. We hope that most of the tunnel is downhill as 4.5k uphill in a tunnel on loaded bike would be hard – We’ll see…