Written by Dave

Hinokage to Hyuga –  (50k, 480m)

Day 18 and boy what a day we had. Rain has been forecast for all of Kyushu for today for more than a week. I generally ignore the 7^th day of a 7 day forecast because it so often changes. Well, 7 days ago they called for rain today in Hyuga and as forecast it rained, and rained, and rained. While it was a pretty miserable day on the bikes, we aren’t going to complain too loudly about it. After all, today was our 18^th day travelling in southern Japan at the tail end of typhoon season, so having no rain until now is probably more notable than our feet getting wet today.

It was supposed to start raining at noon today but in fact it started last night when we walked over to the onsen restaurant for dinner. By the middle of the night, we could hear the rain on the roof of our train car. By morning it was coming down pretty steady. We delayed start for a while but eventually gave up, put on all our rain gear and just got on with it.

Our start took us further down the Takachiho gorge along the riverside road for about 6.5k. At that point, we ran into a “road closed ahead’ sign. I can’t blame Komoot today as they clearly noted the bridge out on their map. A few days ago when we were mapping the route and wanted to stay on the river, we forced the river route by putting a waypoint in at the bridge. Komoot did exactly what we asked it to. There was nothing to do about it but ride back up to the by-pass road and carry on. The by-pass road is way up the side of the gorge and just like yesterday, we had to follow some seldom used out and back tracks but eventually we made it.

On the by-pass, traffic was heavy but we had a nice foot path and stayed off the road. It was just as well as there was a lot of traffic spray and we would have been a mess if we were riding right with the traffic. We took our only rest stop of the day at a michinoeki as I needed to use the gents. I asked Nancy if she wanted a coffee and she accepted with strict instructions that we not doddle for fear of getting too cold – we were soaked at this point, to stop moving would have added cold to equation.

Nancy used the ladies and had a funny interaction with an older lady – keep in mind she already looked like a drowned rat:

Japanese woman > こちらは女性です (translation: this is the woman’s toilet)

Nancy > はい、私は女性です (translation: Yes, I am a woman)

Nancy wasn’t sure that the woman believed her but you could hardly blame her. Soaked, in her puffy rain gear, with her hair pulled back under her helmet and of course with her height (by Japanese standards), mistaking Nancy for a man is not as unusual as it might seem. What was unusual was the woman saying anything at all. We know that we commit a few cultural faux pas every day and we are never corrected. Japanese people are just so polite. Anyway, it gave us something to laugh about once we got back on the road. And for the record, Nancy used the ladies facilities.

From the rest stop to Hyuga it was about 35k. We only stopped when the odd corner stumped us and we needed to check the map. This was sketchy every time, not because we were lost but more because it was raining pretty hard and we feared ruining our phone. We rode through another pretty gorge but there was no way the camera was coming out – it was heads down riding.

In Hyuga we pulled into the first 7-11 we spotted and decided to invoke the wet feet rule – that is, if our feet were beyond wet, we get a hotel room. We had pork buns and coffee at 7-11 while our wet clothes formed a small lake around the store front door area. The staff were kind to us and didn’t mention the lake. The coffee and pork buns restored some feeling to our limbs and gave us the energy to carry on.

We found an acceptable hotel, the Hyuga Dai-ichi Hotel on Booking.com, just around the corner from 7-11 and booked it (we didn’t dare rock up without a reservation). We sent a cancellation note to the camping place we were planning on staying with and rode to the hotel. At the hotel, the staff members were also polite about our wet state and got us checked in, even before the official check-in time. It wasn’t long before we were stripping wet layers and heading for the warm shower. It’s hot and steamy in our room but there is a coin laundry (washer and dryer) in the hotel so everything has been cleaned and is drying. There is rain forecast for tomorrow but much less than today. Then after that, the forecast calls for 7 days of sunshine – roger that.

I took very few photos today but managed to get the train car before we left, then a couple more from the route. They are below.

For late lunch/early dinner we were lazy and went to hotel restaurant. We would normally try to be more adventuresome but it is still raining and we were over being wet for the day. At least we got two more photos for the blog and really, in our normal life, we aren’t going to get Japanese hotel food any time soon.

Overall, it was a tough day. Maybe we’re weather wimps but puddles in 7-11 and the hotel lobby proved it was pretty darn wet out there. We survived and will be ready to do it all again tomorrow (ok, maybe a little less wet would be nice). I also hope the current 7 day forecast is as accurate as the one was 7 days ago – we’re counting on it!

Trying a trick with Nancy’s GPS – if this works, we may add maps to days when we have time.