Written by Dave

Akune to Fukuregi camping, Shimoshima Island – (66k, 1,400m)

Our hostel in Akune (Iwashi) had other guests last night, at least 5 other people.  I think I mentioned yesterday that the room partitions did not go to the ceiling.  So we were ready for a noisy night, particularly as a group of 3 men went out for dinner and weren’t back by the time we went to bed.  Well, it was actually very quiet.  Neither of us heard anyone come in, and there wasn’t much snoring (other than me – Nancy kept poking me with her elbow to get me to be quiet.  Everyone must have been on their best behaviour – hopefully we didn’t wake everyone up when we got up at 6 to get everything packed up. 

When we checked into the hostel yesterday, we agreed to get brekkie both days we stayed there. It was optional. Yesterday they served us a pretty interesting sardine brekkie – no big surprise there, as Iwashi means sardine and they sell a lot of sardine-related products. Today, we got the same brekkie. Again, no surprise. But for those of you who think “sardines for brekkie, yuck”, well, we’re not really at yuck, but let’s just say that we’re probably off the sardine brekkies now for a while. I don’t think it will grow on us. 

We got off as soon as Nancy took her last bite of sardine. No, make that swallowed her last bite of sardine. When Nancy doesn’t like something she stores it in her cheek as long as possible (Senior editor’s note – not true, I just can’t gulp down food like Dave does). Oh well, we got there in the end. We had a little more than 2.5 hours to ride 33k to make the 10:20 ferry. There was a ferry at 11:40 so that would have been fine but we had a goal. I forgot to get my memory card back in my camera last night so I couldn’t take photos until I convinced Nancy a bio break was necessary.  I make this mistake about once a month on a long trip. It’s not good to make these kinds of errors when Nancy is on a mission.

Camera restored to action, I snuck in a few photos over the 33k to the ferry. Most stops are fast and I ride like the wind thereafter to not slow the team down too much. It really would have been a pretty easy ride had it not been for the hills. We had 5 or 6 good uphill pulls on the first island of Nagashiima.

Getting to Nagashima there is a nice bridge that is very photo gentic. I got a couple shots today. While photogentic, it does not score high on the rideable scorecard. There is footpath on both sides but both are just barely wide enough for a loaded bike. I rode, Nancy scooted. The worst part however is that they were out sweeping the footpath of the bridge today. And by sweeping, I mean sweeping. We encountered a sweeper, complete with folding dust bin while trying to cross. She jumped over the guardrail into the traffic lane. We also encountered a supervisor, she did not jump over into the traffic lane but pushed herself up against the outside rail while we passed. Says something about supervisors I think.

Once on Nagashima we made a couple stops but they were very brief. “We” were getting nervous about time and I was given lots of encouragement to keep it moving. We made the ferry 25 minutes ahead of schedule – no worries, right Nancy?

The sail to Shimoshima was mostly smooth. We were little early for lunch when we arrived but waisted a good 30 minutes going up and down all the town streets trying to find a good place to eat. We ended up at a curry shop where I had an OK udon and Nancy had a not very good rice omelette (it sounded good and looked ok, but taste was basically ketchup, rice and egg – odd). I’m including a photo here for completeness of the blog. Don’t try this at home.

After lunch we had about 33k to ride to reach our campsite for the night. There was a hill out of town that was not overly taxing, then a downhill that seemed much longer than the uphill (maybe we are getting fit). After the downhill and little flat we had a 7k climb to the highpoint of the day in the middle of the forest of Shimoshima. The first 4k were normal road with some footpath, center lines and fog lines. The last 3k were pure goat track, no line markings, steep, sharp switchbacks, all through a lovely bamboo/cedar forest. It was a magical climb making us feel like we were truly in the middle of nowhere – one of the best climbs of the trip, so far.

After a short 2k downhill we pulled into our remote campsite. It was hard to tell if it was even open. It’s a municipal campground and there is a caretaker but it was hard to figure out where were even supposed to go. The caretaker was a little brusque at first, probably because I spoke first and he knew he’d have trouble getting us sorted. But not long after, Nancy got him warmed up and he turned into a real charmer. He was still quiet but he first brought us out drinks from his personal stash. Then he got us a couple chairs to sit on. Then finally, he rustled up a coffee/tea set complete with kettle that we can keep until morning. Japanese people can be very reserved, and such small, random act of kindness can make such a big difference in our day and how we feel about a place. And they remind us that we need to better at shouting a coffee/beer/whatever for touring cyclists we encounter when we are not out on a trip.

Tomorrow we head back off the islands to Kyushu proper. We’re heading to a peninsula south of Nagasaki. It still feels like an island because of how it connects to Nagasaki proper and we have to take a ferry, our 8^th of the trip to reach it. That’s right 8 ferries and Nancy’s killing it. More on that tomorrow. Tonight we are the only ones in this campground, the road is very quiet so I think we are in for a good night’s sleep.