Written by Dave

Kanoya to Cape Sata  –  (71k, 1114m)

Ok, maybe not the end of the earth, but at least the end of Kyushu and as the sign at the cape says, the furthest southern point of the Japanese mainland. I know, there is no mainland, we covered that a couple weeks back. Four big islands of Japan do not form a mainland. But the sign called it mainland and really, we are just guests. If they want to call it mainland, then Nancy and I have ridden to the end of mainland Japan – woohoo.

It was super quiet in our shipping container pod overnight. And we had our own bathroom, so we were double happy. We both slept well and were having a nice morning until Nancy decided to let the automatic phone software update go through (to be fair, she asked me and I agreed). Well, once done upgrading, we could no longer connect to the Docomo network. Not what we needed as we headed out to the end of the earth. We ended up calling the help center, they didn’t really help much, eventually we got it working by using our backup phone and somehow it started working again when we put the sim back into the primary phone.  All good in the end but stressful and it meant we ran out of time for Nancy to make a check-in call to her mom – so don’t worry Jan, all is good.

We were a little late leaving and trusted Komoot to get us out of town safely. It all went well except we think we climbed a hill that we didn’t need to. The routing had two bonuses however. The first was routing past a very busy senior’s day at the golf/croquette  field. Honestly I don’t know what sport they were playing, kind of a cross between the two games – big balls, big headed clubs (one each) and a target pin of some fashion. All I can say with confidence is that it was mixed six-somes and there were some keen seniors whacking a ball with great skill and concentration – with much raucous cheering following each shot.

The second fun thing from the climbing route was a view point that gave a very distant view of Mt Sakurajima, a very recently active volcano near the city of Kagoshima. We got to see a funky s-shaped cloud formed by the ash and morning winds. The plume was worse yesterday, affecting the airspace even down here at Cape Sata. We can’t smell anything now but it’s something to keep an eye on.

Once off the hill route and onto the coast, we started seeing kilometre markers for a bike race scheduled here on Sunday. Then we started seeing roadies out practicing/riding on the course. We had no chance of keeping up with them on their race bikes, plus they looked pretty fit. It seems like a biggish race. We aren’t sticking around for a late entry but it would have been fun to watch.

We had a couple snack breaks but kept thinking it was too early for lunch. We eventually gave up looking for the perfect spot and then found the perfect spot, a little ramen shop in a small fishing village of Tokimi. They were hopping with business, maybe the only place open in town today and clearly a good product. In many ways, these little whole in the wall places are why we travel by bike. You’d never think of looking in Tokimi for anything in a car, as you could just blast through to the Cape in no time. It was a perfect stop.

Before lunch we had a few short tunnels and one really long 2k one. After lunch we had some good climbs and more tunnels. Cape Sata was going to be earned. We eventually made it to the Sata Misaki campground – really just a free to use public green with toilets. But we couldn’t stop yet for the day. Cape Sata was 8k beyond the camp ground so yes, we had to ride out there. It was a really hard ride especially as you know you have to ride everything backwards in a short while and there were some ripper downhills.

We pushed on and in about 30 minutes reached Cape Sata, the southern most point on Kyushu and as far as we were concerned today, the end of the earth/road and outbound riding. We took some photos, hung out and took in the vibe, had an ice cream to celebrate then turned around and rode back the 8k to the camp ground. It was not anywhere near as hard as we feared – it almost never is…

There are a few folks at the camp but it’s pretty quiet. We snuck “cowboy showers” in the toilet block then had dinner and are calling it an early night. We have to ride 33k tomorrow morning early to catch the 11AM ferry to the next peninsula over. And while we know the ride will be easier than we remembered, those hills and tunnels we rode today to get here are certainly on our minds.

Signing out from the end of the earth…

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