Written by Dave

Konoka to Omishima Island  – A tunnel, a rat run and lots of islands (97k, 860m)

We slept very well at the Onsen – perhaps it was the long soak we took before retiring to our room. We retired early because the restaurant was closed at 6 even though they said it would be open until 7. I think we might have misunderstood them as only their very poorly stocked convenience shelves were open until 7. Not to worry, we had a large and late lunch. We were concerned that the onsen would have been really dated, one of those “was once great “places. It turned out to be a fantastic stop and a still great place – lucky choice by us.

Given our lack of dinner, come time for brekkie we were getting pretty hungry. Wow – it was worth the wait. We may have topped the other day’s dish count, getting 11 today, plus a sizzling plate of bacon and eggs. I don’t know it we got the normal amount, if the bacon and eggs were because we are foreigners or if the manager who told me no more food last night was feeling guilty and put on a show. Either way, we could barely eat everything and I had to help Nancy with her meal.

Stuffed, we rolled out of the onsen onto a 3.5 k climb to the top of the pass – ouch. Not on the legs, but on the tummies. The gorge climbing was just as stunning as yesterday. Best of all, when we reached the tunnel, it was clear that it was at the top of the pass – yeah, the entire tunnel was downhill for us.

The entry sign confirmed it was 5.4k long – the longest tunnel we’ve ever ridden. Traffic was stunningly light – not a single car overtook us and only a handful came up from the other direction. I’ve never been in a tunnel so long that approaching car noise comes on slowly and completely disappears while still in the tunnel. Normally a car in the tunnel with you means roaring noise the entire time. We flew down at 35k per hour but it still seemed to go on for a long time. It was well lit, but the sidewalk was not rideable. There was a small shoulder but it was not much. Didn’t matter, no traffic made it a blast.

The ride down the gorge outside the tunnel was now a downriver run – another gorge that I don’t know the name of. All up it was 22k of downhill. We stopped a few times for photos but mostly just smiled at all the coasting.

At the bottom, we reached the city of Saijo and had about 40k of city riding on river deltas to reach the start of the Shimanami Kaido cycling route. We trusted Komoot and our GPS device to get us through this but it really tested our patience. Lots of turns, stopping to check if the random route through a neighbourhood was really necessary and re-routing. We gave up a couple times and hopped on a busy road, then got tired of the traffic and re-joined the wandering route. It was not the most fun riding we’ve done on the trip and surprisingly, equally un-fun arguing with a bike computer – the computer didn’t show any emotion no matter how witty my arguments..

We’ve been seeing bright red flowers since we started riding in Osaka. Today we had a couple patches that were really vivid. It is odd to see flowers in the autumn so today we snapped photos so we could ask about them. Our inn keeper informed us that they are higanbana, or red spider lily. Higan refers to the higan Buddhist holiday around the autumnal equinox and hana (here bana, because, well, it’s Japanese). So finally some flowers in our post (for Pete).

We had morning tea at Halow, one of the big grocery stores. They have a good selection of things to eat and clean bathrooms. Lunch was taken at Lawson, for much the same reason. We really enjoy the ubiquity and services of the Japanese markets. They are great for travelling cyclists. In addition, their toilets provide a never ending source of entertainment – some photos below.

Once we reached Imabari we started the Shimanami Kaido – a famous Japanese cycle route covering seven bridges and seven islands. Each bridge is actually car bridge and well above the island so they’ve built a series of circular ramps to get you to/from island to bridge. It really is an amazing bit of infrastructure just for bicycles. Some of the bridges that were once four lanes are now two lanes with two given over to bikes.

Unfortunately, the hour was getting late and we were a bit heads down at this point. I tried to get photos of all the bridges but my senior editor was giving me the hurry along as it seemed like it could rain and it gets dark around 6. As it was, we only arrived at our lodging (Co-living & Cafe Sando) at 4:30, so it was a long day. Overall, the Shimanami Kaido is pretty cool – and really, well done to Honshu, Shikoku prefectures and Japan in general for putting so much investment into cycle tourism.

The reason we are only riding half the Shimanami Kaido is that tomorrow we are hopping on another set of islands going south and another cycle touring route called the Tobishima Kaido. This route is much less developed. Most of the towns on these islands are remote and untouched – or so we’ve read.

After our “discussions” with our GPS device today, we are going to have to look at our routes going forward. We felt a little rushed today and want to slow it down a little so we can enjoy the sites as much as we enjoy the riding. If we’d split today into two days, well, the GPS might have been abused less and we might have been a bit less stressed at the end of the day – that’s important!