Todays route was a series of “lets just check this out”, starting from
Dainyū (10am) to Karatsu Castle 19 km
Karatsu to Tategami rock 12 km
Tategami to Hamanoura 14 km
Hamanoura to Takakushi 13 km
Takakusi to Irohajima camping ground 5km
Irohajima to Tsubaki camping ground 13km
Tsubaki to Imarin beach 5km (arrival at 6.30pm, just before sunset)
A total of 81km where I wasn’t sure how I did them by the time I got to Imarin beach, after 2 false starts on other camping grounds that were either unappealing or closed and gated.
The day started in the guest house at the Shunshine camp. I saw some vases dotted around with rosemary and mint so I went to the garden to pluck some for tea. This was breakfast pretty much as I didn’t have anything else with me. I had a good litre of tea whilst writing blog in the comfort of a bed and pillows and everything. Then I packed up and left to go and see Karatsu castle. The journey was easy with a bit of headwind. Once I got to Castle Castle, I parked my bike and headed to the castle entrance. The castle reminded me of Matsumoto castle where I visited in 2009, as it was also all in white, just a mini-version of it. The entrance was ¥450, and it was a small castle, but an amazing display of samurai weaponry such as swords shields. The views from the castle were amazing. You could see the whole town. After visiting the castle, I spotted a small Ramen shop. The reviews were great so I checked it out. This was breakfast. The owner of the shop was an elderly lady who was really friendly. I told her that I don’t eat meat. She said she has Ramen with fish and vegetables that sounded great to me. I ate the Udon Ramen whilst the lady brought over some more veggies on the side just felt so good.
After the Ramen I want to see a stone formation near the coast. They look like monolithic stones cramped and forged together. There was also a small cave, which I explored. A few kilometres further, I stopped to buy some strawberries and some cucumber. As I left the shop to sit down and eat my strawberries, I got to observe a small kerfuffle between a local youth and the police, the police officer was trying to stop the youth from going away or even running away and it was quite amusing to see how both remained very friendly throughout the incidence with no shouting, no pushing just gently placing of hands and evading them. Eventually, another few young people appeared also accompanied by a police officer. I wonder what happened but just sat there eating my strawberry and packing the cucumber for later.
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| Here little fish, come into my soup! |
After lunch, I got to the stones pretty quickly parked my bike and walked around. It was a nice short break from here I had to decide. Where am I going to go next there was the road along the coast and the road over the hills I decided to go over the hills considering that I’ve seen coast now for a few days after a few kilometres, I wasn’t so sure anymore but this was the best idea the road was steep and I had to go all the way to 1st gear but even 1st gear didn’t do it, so I had to snake up the road zigzagging to the top. This was exhausting, and I felt like I burnt so much energy in just the 1st km of going uphill, and a 3km “shortcut” compared to the coastal route. I eventually got used to the climbing, the ups and downs along the mountainside, which was rewarded by amazing views. Kyushu is soooo beautiful! I saw many hanging or stacked rice fields along the way. Unlike on the coast, here, the rice fields were still empty yet to be planted. This is not so exciting so I decided not to stop at the “hanging rice fields” point of interest but continued down hill as the ricefields could have been another small detour and I was dying to race downhill for a bit. Somehow the beginning of Wagners “Entry of the gods into Valhalla” was playing in my mind. Then, pretty excited i set off downhill as the bike got up to speed like a little road train. I had to lean into the corners and my two disk brakes had to work extra hard at times.
At some point I stopped and ate the two cucumbers which gave some energy. From here it was on to the Hotspring. This was a proper hot spring with sulphuric infused water coming from deep underground.
I like the pictures on Google Maps, the Hotspring was very small. The restaurant was not open and probably wasn’t open for sometime but the ladies at reception very friendly and elderly. Couple smiled as I came in. They looked really friendly. I headed to the bath. Thankfully, I have purchased a small towel from reception in the bath, I only saw two other men which was quite typical for the time of the day around 3 o’clock or 4 o’clock. The bath was really hot probably over 40° and there was only one pool, very hot; no Cold water pool or anything. The water was so smooth and silky it felt really good to just sit there and let my body rest.
From the Onsen I had to decide how far I was going to go and put some oranges and some rice crackers for the road and then left to my next stop which was a campsite as I got nearer to the campsite. The views were absolutely breathtaking. the coastline, the green, the different shades of green bamboo trees, and all kinds of other flora, Kyushu is so much more interesting in terms of cycling as it’s not as isolated as Hokkaido was and there are many more things to see on the road. I stopped at a supermarket and bought another water before heading off to the campsite. As I got there it was really isolated and boring and I still had energy so I continued cycling. Next campsite was around 12 km away. And look pretty appealing from the pictures. My energy was running low, but I was in high spirits. At some point, I stopped and ate one of the three oranges I had, and then continued the next campsite, I got two was locked up and gated. This was really frustrating as I was now pretty much at the end of my energy level and had very little fuel. I knew I only had one more bottle of water in my backpack, two oranges and some rice cakes.
I decided to leave and go to in Imarin Beach which was my intended destination the day before, but it looked too far to do in one day, never mind, here I was. It was a beautiful beach, currently closed so there were no other travellers or visitors or tourists. Just a lonely beach. I pitched my tent, which took like 5min and was so much faster than my Vango Tornado. This Vango Hydra is a bit smaller and lighter and they figured out a better routing for the poles which caused me huge anguish with the other tent, especially when you have to pitch when it’s raining as it took like 10min. I had the other two oranges and some rice crackers. That was dinner….I had to be careful with the water as I only had one bottle, so I drank half of it and left the rest for tomorrow morning.
Around 8.30- 9pm, I finally went to bed - thankfully I had two mattresses which felt really comfortable and an inflatable pillow. I slept all the way till 4 am when I woke up for a quick bathroom break and back to bed. It was now that I realised that one of the air mattresses, the new one, had completely deflated. Thankfully my trustworthy Hokkaido mattress remained faithful. My lower back already started to hurt a little bit but I blame the cycling, why did I have to do 80km?! Oh well after some tossing and turning I finally fell asleep again until 6 am when the “good morning music” sounded across the beach from speakers in the nearby village. This is very typical for rural Japan, at 6 am, 7 am and maybe even 8 am there is music to get people to work or give them a sense of time.
I got up at 7 am, went for a short walk, took all my stuff out of the tent and placed it onto a large wooden structure. I rubbed my tent with a towel so that it could could dry up from the morning dew. I took out the air mattress and decided to go for a swim with it. Brrrrr…. After dipping the air mattress and myself into the ocean, I found a small hole with the air bubbles rising up from it. I had two patches to fix it so I went on to repair the mattress. Hoping it would stay tight this evening and then set down for a bit had some more water and my daily ration of magnesium, wrote the blog and then planned today. It’s gonna be a nice, sunny day with max 22C.
This is the first blog that was 90% composed through dictation. Only some corrections here and there…
No corrections needed here, poem for the day:
Because my feeling
are too great to put into words,
my heart blazes like the mix a
of Mount Inuktitut,
with a love you cannot know.
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