On the road again!

After a full 15 days off the bike, I arrived in Tokushima ready to hit the road again. My bike had already arrived in the baggage reclaim by the time I got there and the box looked in surprisingly healthy condition given that it had been on 6 flights in total (it received 4 separate plastic wraps over the course of this journey!). 

Standard bike reassembly faff ensued followed by trying-to-get-rid-of-massive-cardboard-box-at-airport faff. There wasn’t a bin in sight that was nearly big enough and eventually I ended up giving the box to the security guy, who looked confused at what he would do with it but was nice enough to take it off my hands!

The forecast suggested the first day would be dry but windy followed by 10 windless sunny days. I can’t believe I narrowly missed 2 typhoons and had perfect weather forecast for my entire duration. It could so easily have been very different, sometimes I think I’m the luckiest traveller in the world! 

As I began riding, I was immediately glad that I did have some time in Tokyo because the area I was riding through looked like it would be quite unbuilt and without seeing Tokyo I wouldn’t have experienced the stereotypical impression of Japan. 

There were more trees in view at any given point than all the trees I saw in Iran combined.

There were streams and waterfalls everywhere, also a welcome change from Iranian dryness. 

There were occasional sights which reminded me that I was now in a properly developed country, such as most streams and rivers having had some sort of (over-) engineering done on it and mirrors at each blind corner to give drivers visibility.

This change of scenery kept me entertained for the few remaining hours of light and by chance, I saw a sign for a campsite just as I was beginning to think about calling it a day. There was also an onsen nearby where I went for a bath after pitching the tent. I thought touring in Japan was going to be breeze based on the experience of the first day, but I couldn’t have been more wrong!

I could see on my map that there was a town just after where I camped on the first night and then it looked like there wasn’t anything for another day and half. I had read on various blogs that there are convenience stores and vending machines everywhere in Japan so I didn’t quite believe the map and half heartedly bought just about enough food to last me that section. The fact that this town had a tiny and barely open shop should have set off alarm bells but I just couldn’t believe there would be no shops for 100+km in Japan. 

Soon it became apparent that there actually really won’t be any shops until at least as far as I had initially assumed as worst case, possibly further and the prospect of having to ration food became more and more real. I could see a shortcut coming up on the map and was going to take it but on approach it looked like I’d be missing out on ‘super forest road’ which sounded intriguing so I decided to risk it and ditched  the main road shortcut.

It was pretty super, with gradually autumn-ing trees, a perfect blue stream running parallel to the road and almost no traffic.

Later on that day I reached another junction that would have likely had me at a shop early the next day, which would mean I would have not have to ration at all. I was about to take it but made a gut call to just push on because it meant not sacrificing a potentially great ride to avoid a potential half day of being slightly hungry. Luckily, I saw a sign for an onsen a few km later that was only a slight detour and I managed to restock some supplies there. I must have been hungrier than I thought because I ate most of the snacks on the spot and had to go back for seconds! It was really hilly after that and I was so glad to not be doing that on an empty tank.

Soon the tarmac turned into a good gravel track

Which turned into a loose dirt track as I climbed further

Things felt pretty remote as I got further, and not a soul in sight for miles! 

It gets dark just after 5pm so the day ends quite early. I was asleep by 7.30pm! I had passed a few OK looking spots for camping but carried on as there was still some day left. Eventually it started getting dark enough that I figured I would have to settle for a mediocre spot and soon saw one on top of a concrete landslide defence. There were three large steps stopping the cliff from sliding into the road and the second step looked wide enough to take my tent. I tried to climb up but the steps were actually really high and whilst I should have been able to climb up eventually, it would be extremely faffy to lug bags up it too and if I slipped there was no one around to help, so I gave up. Luckily, two km up the road there was a massive flat clearing and a perfect camp spot with a view. I would have felt really stupid when I passed this place the following morning if I had ended up camping on the faffy step.

The self timer almost perfectly captured me tripping over a bag as I rushed back to get into the shot!

It was nearly full moon so there was just about enough light to cook without a torch.