Written by Dave

Omishima Island to Mitarai, Osaki Shimozima – Island hopping (38k, 166m)

With no brekkie on offer in town other than what was available at the Lawson mini-mart, we bought milk last night in anticipation of having brekkie at the hostel. It was nice having granola for a change – never thought I’d write that. No, we are not tired of Japanese food yet. Actually the best part was brewing our own coffee and getting it just right. We’re still working on best way to order a coffee here.

With 9k to ride to reach the 9:40 ferry we left early and stayed focused – not too many photos. We saw one other roadie in fancy gear out riding. There were a couple hills but we arrived early, in fact in time for the 8:50 ferry. The ticket seller got us sorted quickly and ushered us on as soon as the ferry arrive. There was no telling her we didn’t need to rush. The ferry could probably hold 30 cars – today there was one, plus another roadie and us.

The sail to Okamura Island was smooth with no need for wrist bands or any other wave mitigation techniques. Once off the boat, we made a snap decision to ride the long way around the island.

The road was mostly deserted except the odd fishermen and some mandarin orange growers. Mandarins are somewhat a specialty of the islands. The mandarin trees are small and planted on terraces up the island’s slope. We stopped to look at ‘farm’ going up the hill and a wizened old woman was there tending what we think was her water tank. 

She was anxious to talk to us so crawled down the ladder (yes, it was that steep, with ladders snaking their way up the hill) and got a full speed, very enthusiastic version of the history of mandarins on the islands. Or at least we think we did, Nancy could barely keep up. Me, nothing. She insisted on giving us some mandarins to try which was nice. They have an interesting one rail cart system running up the hills for harvest and tools I suppose. Most of the rail systems had heavy rust and a general look of disuse.

We had to cross two more small islands and three bridges to reach Osaki-Shima Island. They all came pretty quick as the islands are close. Once on Osaki-Shimozima we again decided to ride the long way around the island. We stayed right on the coast hugging road the whole way around with nice sea views and zero traffic. Eventually we came to our destination – Mitarai.

Mitarai is a very small fishing village that has a small section of old, traditional homes that are mostly 150 years old. We are staying the Kusushi Guesthouse, right in the middle of the old section. We took a short day today so that we could wander the streets of Mitarai but arrived around lunch time so we decided to eat first. We found a bento restaurant for lunch and discussed the plan. We couldn’t check in until 4 and we really wanted a shower and to clean-up before the wander.

Well, show up in a sleepy fishing village, in a remote island in Japan – in bike clothes and lighter blond hair. You aren’t sneaking up on anyone. Just as we were leaving the restaurant, a man approached us and asked “are you Nancy”. It was our guest house manager offering to let us come into the house early – great, the shower problem was solved. We didn’t actually get out for the town stroll until much later in the afternoon – when the heat went down – everything worked out perfect.

The stroll of town was fun. It is pretty small and while great to look at, the old buildings are hard to photograph. It’s too hard to get the right perspective. We wandered a bit, Nancy reading a bunch of the plaques and me trying to get into any trouble going down someone’s private alleyway.  At the end of the stroll we came out to a small square where the local market owner was selling some fresh squeezed mandarin juice – he didn’t have to work hard to sell us – yum.

Eventually having covered all of town, we ended back at the bento restaurant again for dinner. The town is really shrinking with many shops closed and a lot that are open were closed on Friday. You could play with photos for a few days here, but you’d better bring your own food.

Tomorrow we have the last half of the Tobishima Kaido cycleway to ride, and then we’ll hop another ferry into Hiroshima. We have a day off there with hopes of visiting the peace park and taking in some of the history.