Japan: Shikoku - Golden Week

[colin]

Golden Week - 2009 - May 2-6

Last year we did the Goldenbutt out to Kyushu, this time tackling the smallest of the 4 major islands composing Japan. This is a crowded time of year to travel, as there are 3/5 days of the week as holidays. Added to that the economic stimulus of reducing toll charges to ~1000JPY in non-metro areas. This means the one-way trip out to Shikoku will cost ~15 bucks instead of over 100$ in tolls. Even more for cars. So while that is nice to not pay so much, it means every donkey and their owner is going to be out on the road....as tolls + gas are now cheaper than trains/ferries.

This year it was a big group from mostly the SBKJapan crowd.... Many left Friday to avoid traffic. I couldn't. Others came a bit later.

I will say, the journey out on the Tomei was one of the most miserable trips I've made. Started off fine, no probs at the toll booth. But looking at the signs, it was a couple hours to Gotemba... ? Later signs said 4 hours to hamamatsu from somewhere, other red signs.... Lots of small fender benders. Traffic all the way to Nagoya. Which is normally 3 hours away, took 5. Filtering most of that.

Past Nagoya it got OK, then made a hop to Shikoku....

Hours later, got to the big bridge.... One damn fine bridge. Probably very scary when windy....was windy enough on a calm day!

On the way to the rider's inn, stopped at seeing this....

That's Day 1 Excitement. Lots of highway.

 

[colin]

Day 2. Morning. Let's take a look at these Rider's Inn things.... Quite a cool idea.

I can't find anything that sums up what these are (in English anyway), but from what I gather, the local government in Kochi built a few of these, and it was up to the local towns to kit them out. Some are better than others. This one was pretty all right I thought, bit dingy inside the bathroom areas, but overall pretty cool.

Nakatosa Rider's Inn

Front entrance has space for two. Unless Craig parks there. Electrical outlet outside, as well as a water hose.

Can sleep 3 on futons.

Bathroom on left.

Good enough....

BYO towels/soaps, etc. But had hot water....

 

[colin]

Here's the line-up shots....

and my latest farkle....

 

[colin]

Yes, yes, I know, it's a great bike.... no, you can't ride it.... ok...

Ivan's Sporty.

View from Cape Ashizuri

Coming back up the west side was fantastic....

Yeah yeah, let's all meet up at that monkey park...

um, yeah. All these monkeys and none of those other monkeys who wanted to meet here. ?? Still working on our communication....

View from the monkey park.

Found Craig at the Observatory. Took this pic.... great views from up there.

Convinced him to go to the monkey park because it looked cool.

 

[colin]

Had a lot of fun with these monkeys....

This guy is trying to get my keys....

and my favorite:

 

[colin]

Here's the Day 2 Route.

Monkey Park is lower left. Bit coming back into the center is a trip to the hospital (friend on an R1 ran into the back of a small van. Now basically OK, but didn't remember living in Oz for the last two years.... till much later).

Dinner was at the onsen. Had Katsuo Tataki here. (sorry, started eating).

Not bad, seared something (katsuo i guess). Bit small. Had to order a mini-udon which was also quite tasty in order to fill up.

Dinner madness.

This dude was a riot. Some random guy we met who was on an ZX10R or 12R or something. Camped out by us. He didn't want a pic with anybody else. Just her. (yes, i was jealous)

 

[FJRBluesman]

That is too Cool!!! Looks like a blast . Those little huts are the bomb!

I wonder how well the monkeys ride? Do they have monkey licenses for them? How could one of those critters afford a FeeJ?

Awesome! Ride safe.

 

[colin]

So that's my tent. The fancy MSR Hubba is great.... but having been sitting for a while (a year or more?) the rain fly and bags have become all sticky, leaving sticky crap on your hands, etc. It also is not as waterproof as it used to be.... I guess I'm in the market for another ultralight solo tent.... (likely buy another hubba, but will browse).

Volker stayed in this summer "tent". it 1. wasn't that warm and 2. wasn't all that dry.....

He originally set up here, which was under a tree, but was really a puddle (oops)

Mick amongst the tents....

The a.m. lineup. Couple guys took off early in the morning. I heard them, but stayed in the mostly dry tent instead...

Everybody hiding under the awning here.

 

[colin]

Three of us made a run to Joyfull (family restaurant) for breakfast....

That orange-yellow stuff was apparently some mango drink. tasted like shit.

Fortunately, the coffee was all right....

yum!

Here's the campsite.

Next door onsen. ONSEN is a public bath. Take a shower sitting on a stool. Jump in a pool of really hot water and soak. it's awesome. Takes a bit of getting used to, coming from more prude societies.... lots of naked dudes in one place. Outdoor ones really rock. Co-ed exists, usually require swimsuit (but not always). anyway....

 

[colin]

Here's some nature shots. The greens out there were spectacular. These are from the 4 and 441. Swung by the hospital on the way out. He remembered my name, which was a good sign. Seemed to be doing fine. Left him to deal with the police & insurance shizzle and headed into the woods....

zoom zoom.

 

[colin]

The guys I'm riding with are very rapid.... one guy was hanging back with me and then just before the turn off shot past me into the distance. We had to wait about 15 minutes for him to sort it out and come back.....

Volker (the guy with the "summer" tent) was always pretty entertaining when getting out of his wet leathers.....

Finally got some of that famous udon.....

The 441 turns pretty miserable pretty quickly. It was so slow I had time to take this while we waited for getting through the traffic.

 

[Dudewado]

Had a lot of fun with these monkeys....



This guy is trying to get my keys....

"C'mon, Bust! You know you've had too much to drink, I'm not giving your keys back!"

Looks like a typical FJR group ride.

Simply incredible ride, report, and pictures.

If I could visit only one country, I would see Japan.

Thank You for sharing.

 

[colin]

The rain gear had these guys dropping their pants a lot. something about rain gear being hot. was a bit unsettling tho.

Still going up the 441....

The good news is that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

The bad news is that it is very small and very far away.

End of the 441 going north.

Here's the Day 3 route, started bottom left. From the campsite, went up the 56, then down the 4, and all the way up the 441. Got on the highway at the end. Found a Route Inn way far away in Saijo.... so hoofed it almost 100km on the highway. Hey, it was dry.

 

[colin]

Took this opportunity to dry out all my camping stuff.

The dinnertime crowd.

For some reason, I thought this was really cool.

 

[colin]

Some food from the fancy izakaya.

 

[colin]

Day 4 - I broke off with the last of the group and went back out west. The others headed home, ended up going through the rain and traffic, but all made it back all right.

My route was this, starting from the top and going west around the coast.

close up of west coast.

I attempted to have a look at that cape on the northwest side....Route 197. The road was nice, but crowded and slow. I got fed up since I would have had to backtrack anyway, and escaped out to a coastal road that was small and twisty (Route 255). Quite a relief!

 

[colin]

Turned south down Route 378, taking you through lots of fishing villages. Not a bad road at all.

They seem to grow something down there as well. No idea what it is tho.

 

[colin]

I cruised into Uwajima and decided to hunt for that famous sex museum. Took a while, but eventually found it. Guide book said it was well sign-marked in English. Well, it wasn't.

It is a shrine, and next to it a museum. Here's the shrine bit.

Museum is in there. Couldn't take pics. Some monk sold the entrance ticket (800 yen i think). Sort of bizarre. Worth the visit? Maybe... I suppose if you pass through Uwajima stop by.

 

[colin]

After that, I headed out to Karst. Karst is an area that is "scottish highlands" type.... (actually, karst is a geographic-type term, but they used this as the name of the area, so hey, there you go....)

Close up of Karst route:

(track makes it hard to see....)

I went from the bottom part from the west on 197. Then around counter-clockwise.