Day 36: Fukuda to Murou

October 31, 2024

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A motorcyclist joined us at the campground last night. Unlike our previous two biker neighbors, this guy was friendly. We like friendly.

We invited Michael over to have coffee with us this morning. The air was brisk, so java really hit the spot. Michael shared some chocolate-covered freeze-dried strawberries with us. It was good to have something sweet to go with the coffee.

We took our time breaking camp. This was the first time in a while, or perhaps for the entire trip, where we added distance to our route just for fun. The shortest distance between the two campgrounds is 24km, and we rode more than twice that.

This morning we finally noticed that quarried stone is just lying around next to the road in many places. Rejects?

Hey! That's the ferry we came in on yesterday!

As soon as we left Fukuda, the port village, we started to climb far above the sea.

I recognized these from the Andersons' 2007 journal. They haven't gone anywhere!

Many of these nearby islands are accessible on foot

Ample rest areas and useful signage made us cyclists feel at home.

Traffic was practically nonexistent. Hills, on the other hand, were almost constant until we reached the southernmost point of this road. Then it flattened out and stayed flat. This was great news for us, because we were getting hungry. The sooner we could make it to civilization, the better.

Shodoshima the city wasn't nearly as big as I imagined, but it has two 7-11s and a good supermarket. We went a little crazy making up for the konbini drought we had just suffered through. It was so traumatic! We ate lunch on the smokers' bench outside the store, with wrappers and containers piling up like a poor man's Tower of Pisa.

Next, it was off to the supermarket to supplement our haul with some vegetables. The entire store was freezing! My hands were starting to numb, which is a bad sign. I thought a hot drink would help. I rushed over to the coffee machine, which was, of course, broken. Luckily they had a hot water dispenser. We grabbed some of our instant coffee packets from a pannier and helped ourselves to the water. That helped immensely.

There was a place on our route called Olive Park. We didn't know exactly what they wanted to showcase there other than olive trees. It turns out that a live-action version of Kiki's Delivery Service was made in 2o14, and that it, or part of it, was filmed on the island. They had this shtick with a stick, where you could borrow a broom and make it look like you're flying it by jumping, while your friend or whomever, snaps your photo. Sounds silly, but it was a lot of fun to watch young and old alike be silly.

We saw four wild boar today, but none at Olive Park

Finally, we rode around a second peninsula. Somehow I routed us on a shortcut, and we missed seeing the lighthouse. Oh well.

...so please leave me alone, giant sculpture man.

We soon reached the turnoff to the campground. A michi no eki lay just ahead of us. We debated about whether to visit it, or to skip it so we can set up camp as soon as possible. We chosenthe former, and as we were just about to leave, Michael showed up and said hello. It turns out he's staying at the same campground tonight. We're the only three people here. Pretty crazy, considering the size of this place.

We keep meaning to get a photo of Michael, and we keep forgetting. Maybe tomorrow morning.

We've booked a guesthouse room for the next two days to ride out the tail end of a typhoon. It might be boring. It might not. Only time will tell. From a logistics standpoint, it's fine, since we're in a holding pattern until our friend Mei arrives in Takamatsu on Monday. Have I not mentioned Mei? I'll explain the whole thing tomorrow. It'll be a good use of my time while we're holed up indoors during this storm.

Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 2,125 km (1,320 miles)

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