Written by Dave

Tenku-no-mori to Kyukamura Autocamp – Mt Aso (61k, 1,1310m)

Our first night camping on this trip went well. We were in bed at 7PM, partly because of the darkness and partly because of being tired from yesterday’s ride. The camp site was ok. We paid for a powered site but we don’t carry the special camping ground plug needed to convert to normal plugs. So we ended up carpet bagging the power from the ladies restroom. Not to worry, Nancy was the only woman at camp so she didn’t trip on the cord. There were two men camping and us, not too busy. As for the camp ground standard, not having a table or chairs takes points away but the spa, well, that’s a whole new level of luxury.

It took us a bit of extra time to get organized this morning. We are travelling lighter this trip, meaning fewer things to pack but the first camp pack up is always a challenge. We commandeered the camp kitchen area but as noted, no one was around to be offended. Around 7:30 folks started showing up for work in the restaurant. I have no idea why was they were not remotely busy yesterday and they don’t open until lunch. Hope springs eternal – we wish them well but do worry about the lack of visitors.

The mystery of last night’s mountains has been solved. They were the three peaks of Kuju Mountains National park. This park blocks the view of Mt Aso from Oita and Beppu. For most of the morning we rode around these mountains. Traffic today was pretty light but credit should partially go to Komoot as we crossed some bigger roads where there was a bit more traffic, more trucks for sure. We had mixed footpaths to get us off the road – sometimes on the right, sometimes on the left. We generally used them on the uphills but skipped them on the downhills. They are too bumpy for riding downhill with any speed.

We rolled along all morning, with the eye towards stopping for a break at the first decent place we spotted. Nothing was spotted. So we rolled onwards until 11AM when out on a more major road we came upon a michinoeki. Being just on 11, it was a bit early for lunch and we were only going to snack but the nice ladies in the accompanying restaurant were quite welcoming so we became their first customers of the day.

We rolled along all morning, with the eye towards stopping for a break at the first decent place we spotted. Nothing was spotted. So we rolled onwards until 11AM when out on a more major road we came upon a michinoeki. Being just on 11, it was a bit early for lunch and we were only going to snack but the nice ladies in the accompanying restaurant were quite welcoming so we became their first customers of the day.

Not long after lunch we crested big downhill into the Mt Aso caldera. There are five peaks around the caldera. We had a ripper downhill that on the busiest road of the day. It would have been a bit of a nail bitter except the flagger at a construction site insisted that we set off first down the hill and we were able to keep ahead of all the traffic until we reached a pull out. We stopped, letting all the downhill traffic pass, then used the construction stoppage up the hill keep us traffic free to the bottom of the hill.

The town of Aso sits in the middle of the caldaria but we turned off towards Mt Aso before reaching town. We were supposed to stay there but breaking the climbs into two days gave us time to skip the outdoor shops of this mountain centre. We could see two of the caldera peaks coming down the hill and in turning left we headed towards a climb that would take us past Mt Nekodake and Mt Aso.

We had one more long climb to get to our stop for the day.  The climb was amazing. We had blue skies and almost no traffic, except the odd Ricky racer on a motor bike. With each turn of the climb the mountains got closer and I stopped for photos. Too many photos I’m sure but Nancy didn’t mind as she was able to ride a nice leisurely pace up the climb. The climb was only about 10k long with a false summit coming at 8k. Overall it was a pretty easy climb compared to yesterday but wow, the views were amazing. A climb to put in the “best of all times collection” for sure.

It was mostly downhill from the crest of the caldera to our campsite so we doddled a bit. We first stopped for a coffee about 2k away. The woman was running the coffee out of her house and we her only customers. We had a nice visit, then with her encouragement, we climbed the hill behind her house to a shrine up the side of the mountain. It was a pretty good walk but once we started, we were committed and kept going.

After coffee and the hike we decided that we’d killed enough time and that it was close enough to dinner that we rode all of 1k further to a tofu shop that we’d seen when doing recon for food a few days back. We stopped in for an early dinner and both had very nice tofu curries. Time and place may have helped as the back side of Mt Aso was right in front of us outside the restaurant window.

Finally at 3, we rolled into the camp Kyukamura Autocamp. We booked a glamping tent to try something different. We like our tent but decided to have some fun. It’s funky and best summarized by Nancy’s comment “ I’d be fine in my own tent”. Oh well, it’s fun. Unfortunately the showers are out and we had to wait for the 7PM onsen opening to get cleaned up. And they charged us for the onsen even though, as I said, the showers are out. If they spoke English, I’d give the manager a piece of my mind but they don’t so we just smiled and enjoyed the onsen.

In the theme of fun places to stay, tomorrow we’re heading for some retired train cars. But that’s tomorrow. Today was a blue ribbon day for a bike ride and we got to ride a pretty gorgeous mountain. Life is good!