Some days start out well, things are good and then.…
So this is the good part. We had a great view from our room which looked out to the sea. We could see the shoreline and that we were in for a windy day. We usually read the weather forecast everyday and we have become accustomed to recognizing the wind factor which greatly reduces the predicted temperature. It will say the temp is 12 degrees but feels like 3…and they are right!
The smoke billowing out of the black building tells us that this is a business where they are smoking tuna. We will ride over when we check out to see what is happening.
We left our hotel, Ocean Hotel Iwato in Makurazaki armed with good information from our host about an interesting route. Originally we had planned to ride along the south coast and then head north to Isubuki. We find that coastal routes can be popular and we wanted to avoid heavy traffic and possibly freight trucks. We are going to take an inland route with little traffic that sounds interesting.
Our host giving Mary Ellen advice on where to ride today. It sounds interesting as we will be riding through tea farms.
First we headed in to Makurazaki to check out their famous smoked tuna operations. Makurazaki is the top producer of bonito flakes in all of Japan. It is an amazing place. Small factories are dotted throughout the town and the smell is tantalizing. To find a factory, just look for a massive stockpile of metal bins filled with firewood cut to a uniform size as well as smoke billowing from buildings. We watched huge trucks arrive with massive metal bins filled with tuna and the ensuing rapid back and forth of fork lifts transporting the tuna to the factory. It is a bustling place with a high level of activity with fellows transporting dried tuna and fresh tuna non stop with a forklift and a team of woman working as a group around tables of fish. Combined with the billowing smoke, the aroma of tuna being smoked and the high energy of it all creates quite a scene. Now we understand that bonito flakes are made from smoked and fermented tuna and are an important ingredient in Japanese cuisine…bonito flakes are the reason dashi has such a unique flavour. The method of creating the final product has existed in Japan for centuries. Bonito flakes are created by boiling bonito tuna and repeatedly roasting and drying it until its moisture content is 26% or less. The process started in Makurazaki in 1707.
Bins of wood which are used for smoking the bonito tuna.
We watched this truck arrive full of bins of bonito tuna. In no time, the forklift operator was unloading the truck and moving the bins into the factory.
Found this interesting. Airing out the bedding is a daily routine in Japan…usually out the window. But you have to wonder if airing it out is a misnomer here as the smell of smoked tuna permeates everything
Next we wanted to ride into the town core to see a project initiated by the Art Gallery to make the downtown more interesting.…and it was. Below are a few of the art pieces on display.
Barry also found an incredible bakery which had embraced Christmas with lovely decorations as well as a large tree with floating snow, lights etc. But to be fair, the real star of the bakery was their baking. We bought a few decadent treats and they offered us chairs and trays so that we could enjoy our treats in the warmth of the bakery.
We sometimes have to pinch ourselves at our good fortune. Life on the road is full of surprises and allowing the unexpected to happen. Who knew we’d be eating cake first thing in the morning?
We headed off to the recommended route to Ibusuki which is a bit inland with few cars and it cuts through the tea growing industry of this area. Being a bit higher than the coast, we enjoyed incredible views of the coast and the imposing dormant volcanic peak Mount Kaimon, 3,000 ft high and considered to be the Mt. Fuji of Satsuma. It was great.
Mt Kaimon, a dormant volcano will be alongside for much of the day.
We have been riding for some time and there have been no stores, businesses or bathrooms. Out of desperation, we went into this building which had an office and a small store. We greatly appreciated the office worker letting us use their facilities. Whew.
The problem began when we realized that this route, if we continued, would require steep climbs over the mountains. We tried various roads, all of which led to further problems. At this point in the day, it isn’t great to be adding distance and then backtracking. Out of desperation we opted to head to the coast and make our way from there. The cost of this was an additional 20 km. Our e-motors by this point were running on fumes. Yikes. Thankfully we found a Conbini to have a break and do a bit of charging to get us there. Riding in the dark and up steep climbs with traffic made for quite a dangerous ride.
Looking forward to this long descent after some vigorous climbs.
The final part of this comedy of errors is that we had the wrong hotel on our route on google maps. It is a weird thing…the names are almost the same with one using hyphens between the syllables of the name. We were excited to reach our destination but had a bad feeling when we arrived. It was a very upscale hotel and we felt conspicuously out of place. A trio of men in high end suits at the front desk were visibly upset that they couldn’t find our reservation and when we saw that rooms started at 30,000¥ we knew we were in the wrong place. The good thing is it was only 5 km to reach hotel we had booked. Thank goodness it wasn’t any further. We headed off to the Onsen Hotel, pretty exhausted because despite riding a “flat route” we had climbed most of the day.
Today's ride: 55 km (34 miles) Total: 1,638 km (1,017 miles)
