Written by Dave

Shimo-Hojo Tottori  to Tsuyama (Hotel R9) – Accidental Travel Treasures – (70k, 780M)

It was quiet overnight in the bungalow, other than the trucks out on the highway which never really stopped all night. We couldn’t see any other campers in the park this morning so it wasn’t a case of a bunch of late arrivals – it really was deserted. A little bit too quiet for our liking – zero people to interact with is weird.

As we set out today, I was looking to capture photos of Mt Daisen. Mt Daisen is big, not Mt Fuji big but big all the same. Well, as often happens when we set out with a vague, slightly under researched day it didn’t turn out like planned.

For starters, we never saw Mt Daisen. We rode up the Tenjin river valley from Tottori, on Highway 179. I’m guessing that Mt Daisen is a couple rivers away and our gorge was too deep to see over surrounding hills. We’d probably known this if we had Googled “Mt Diasen views” but we didn’t and that’s ok. Our travel is not about seeing every landmark and ticking boxes. The ride up the Tenjin valley was still scenic, not overly steep and bonus, it had a footpath from the bottom to the top. I got some photos of other things.

The tunnel at the top of the pass was a little dicey at almost 2k in length, more or less uphill, with no footpath and not all that well lit. But that was our route so we got on with it. We turned on Nancy’s rear flasher, put me on the front in time trial mode and rode like the wind. We had a couple trucks pass us but they waited for oncoming traffic to clear and other than the adrenalin boosts, it was completely safe. Still we were glad to be out of it.

From the tunnel it was mostly downhill to a late morning tea at the michi-no-eki in Okutsu. The Okutsu art festival is on but the real treat at the michi-no-eki was a van selling proper coffee and scones. We had a nice, long stop, sitting in the sun enjoying our treats. It is worth noting that we’ve ridden with leg warmers the last two days. Fall is really in the air and it’s been chilly in the AM.

After our late morning tea, we got back on the theme of the day. While we missed views of Mt Daisen we were treated to the Okutsu gorge and a wonderful soba restaurant for lunch. Both places we’d not heard of and in the case of the restaurant, probably a place we wouldn’t have stopped at had we done our research. It had pretty low reviews in Google, but we didn’t know and it worked out great.

First the gorge, technically called Okutsu Valley but it was really a gorge in our opinion. We almost missed the start but we could see another tunnel looming on Highway 179 so we backtracked to a Komoot cut-off road. There was a security guard and warning sign at the start of the gorge but that’s only because they make the road one-way for a 2-week period in the fall so that people can drive slow or walk the gorge and look at the fall colors. Who knew (not us)? We arrived here in the first week the annual color show. We were going down and one-way traffic was coming up but the guard told us as long as we went slow, we’d be OK. I probably took too many photos. The Okutsu Valley fall colors will probably be better in a week or so, but for something we didn’t even know was coming, it was a treat.

After the gorge we got back on Highway 179. It was getting on noon and we were thinking about food. We were still full from morning tea but timing lunch here is important as most of the restaurants are closed by 2PM. We passed a couple places before pulling up at a soba restaurant. Had we been better at reading kanji, we probably would have known that the chef was a “soba master chef” but we didn’t know. For most of the time, we were the only customers. The host, an older woman and her husband had been there for 40 years. The building has been there for 350 years. The soba was divine. We had soba noodles, soba tea, soba tofu, soba rice and a few more things I can’t remember. The host spoke fast Japanese and might have come across as stern (the source of some low reviews) but for us, it was great being served by someone who was so passionate about what they were doing while also being very patient explaining things to us.

We accidently found two travel treasures today and rode the rest of the way to Tsuyama with smiles on our faces. Serendipty is a big part of why we travel – today gets full marks.

We arrived at our home for the night, a second container hotel, R9 The Yard, a little too early, so we decided to get another coffee to kill time. We’ve been somewhat snobbishly avoiding a chain called Komeda’s Coffee but there was one right near the hotel so we decided to try it out. It might well be the equivalent of “Denny’s” but they had a nice house blend and a tasty chocolate cake to boot. You just don’t know until you try.

And speaking of trying new things, dinner was an experience. We went a few doors down to an udon restaurant where they cook noodles up front and you order as the queue/line of people moves around a counter. There is no English and Nancy resorted to the phone because there was too much kanji. I ended up just picking a photo a liked. She got kitsune udon because she knew what it was. But boy, the pressure when you reached the order taker with a queue of 20 folks behind us just wishing we’d move it along, crazy. Food was good and we both managed to get the look right (you make your own once they give you a steaming bowl of something you may or may not have ordered!). Anyway, more adventure, more fun…

Tomorrow we ride the second half of our Honshu traverse. Even though today we had the big climb up the Tenjin river, tomorrow has more climbing than today. I’m sort excited about the climbs because I know that they will take us up a few hills where the fall colors are better. But then again, maybe we’ll find something else tomorrow that we didn’t know was coming. Bring on those travel surprises.