May 16, 2017
Katsuura to Minami: A ton of tunnels along the way
After a good night’s sleep we woke up early, as did the elderly couple, and, after a tea and coffee with some raisin buns left over from the night before, we set off down the road to check out the Michi no Eki (road station) that we had passed just a few kilometers before we arrived at the campsite the night before. Michi no Eki are a modern recuscitation of old Japanse roadside stations which provided rest and shelter to travellers. The modern ones generally have a few local shops (no chain like 7-11 or Family Marts etc), toilets and an information center. They might also have a restaurant and even showers and free wifi. It is an accepted practice to sleep at Michi no Eki, either in your vehicle or even in a tent if it is pitched out of the way.
The traffic was quite heavy for much of the early part of the ride but by cycling on the pavement (sidewalk for north American readers) we felt safe and out of harms way. Cycling on the pavement seems to be the standard thing to do in Japan and even large highways have them on at least one if not both sides of the road. Once the route 55 split, the road became pleasantly quiet and after a few climbs and lots of tunnels we started a lovely descent into Minami.
We picked up Mandarin Duck along the way – a lifer, because all the Mandarin Ducks we have seen before were escapees or captive birds.
Minami also had a Michi no Eki and we checked it out as well. Surprisingly both the Minami one as well as the one near Katsuura had really pongy toilets. There was a Family Mart across the road so we decided to use it facilities instead. Besides, we needed to buy some lunch and charge my cellular phone.
The maps at the Michi no Eki showed a campsite just north of Minami so we set off to look for it. A lovely cycle along a coastal road led us to Ohama Beach, famous for turtles and Oriental House Martins (saw the House Martins – a lifer). When we got to the point where we thought the campsite should be, all we could find was a large rock in the sea with a shrine on it with a pathway leading down to the shrine. If that’s where we could camp it wouldn’t work for us because we would never get the bicycles down the path. So we turned back to Minami. We stopped in at the Michi no Eki for one last check as to where the campsite should be, having already resigned ourselves to cycling further on to find some place to stealth camp. It turned out we hadn’t made it all the way to the campsite which was in a small fishing village about a kilometer further on from where we had turned. So we turned around and cycled back past Ohama Beach and the shrine at the rock and found the campsite. It is quite simple in terms of facilities, although better than last night, but for 900 JPY it’s a bargain.
The only other camper was a motor cyclist who arrived an hour or so after us so we had a lovely quiet and early night.
Today's ride: 63 km (39 miles)
Total: 330 km (205 miles)
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