Crazy Bike Trip to Irago
Trip Start
Mar 18, 2004
1
4
20
Trip End
Apr 12, 2006
Irago,
Japan
Thursday, July 22, 2004
As you can see on the attached map (the first picture in the photos for this entry), Nagoya is located at the top of a peninsula known as "Minami Chita" (literally: South Peninsula"...i think). It's actually a pretty beautiful area, full of semi-countryside (the best you can get in these parts) and small villages. It's about 60 kilometres from Nagoya to Morozaki, the small town at the bottom of the peninsula.
**Map**
The plan was to ride down to Morozaki and take the ferry across to another neighbouring peninsula, to the town of Irago. This second peninsula is where Izzy and crew like to go surfing on Sundays, and is about a 2 hour drive from Nagoya if you drive all the way around instead of taking a shortcut. Anyway, we'd heard the beaches were beautiful and the seafood plentiful. In addition, Nick estimated that it took him about 5 hours to ride down to Morozaki, including getting lost twice, so we figured it was definitely within our reach. It was, but it was a bit trickier than we thought. We decided to make it a camping trip, so Chris and I had bought a (very small) 2-man tent a few weeks before, as had Kyle and Joanne. Chris rule had a tent sent to him from home, which was also quite small and portable. We managed to strap the tents to the crossbars of our bikes, our sleeping mats to the handlebars, and each of us carried our own backpack. We planned on buying food, not carrying it (that would have been too much), but I had my Nalgene bottle for water and a few snacks, along with a meagre amount of clothes, and all the other necessary provisions (tarp, sunscreen, bugspray, first aid kit, toiletries etc.).
We left Nagoya on Sunday, July 18th at about 7:30am.
01 - Starting Out
Determined to get out of the city before stopping for breakfast, we followed the freeway south past the port area in a southeasterly direction. Correction: we thought we were going southeast. After about an hour and a half, we realized that we had actually gone southwest, and ended up on the west side of the peninsula instead of the east. So we trundled back on over to the east side, moving south all the time, until we found ourselves in the city of Handa, where we had breakfast. This was around 10am I believe, though it should be noted that you can take the train from Nagoya station to Handa in about 20 minutes. Throughout the trip I was constantly thinking this way ("so, after a 4 hour ride, we're now a 45-minute train trip from home") which was probably a little unhealthy. Nevertheless, the ride down the coast after that was generally pleasant, as we found the main highway we were looking for and didn't get lost again. We were convinced a few times that we were "almost there", only to realize that we had at least couple of hours ride ahead of us. But such was the nature of the adventure. Throughout the ride down, we stopped numerous times at Circle-K variety stores for refreshments, snacks, and to refill water bottles. As we realized later, we were actually quite lucky that day, as it was pretty cloudy, and even rained a little here and there, which kept the temperature down. (For those who don't know, the summer in this part of Japan can be a killer. The temperature hovers somewhere around 36 degrees celsius, and the humidity is usually up around 70%
02 - Fishing
. And the sun beats down.)We arrived at Morozaki just after 2pm on Sunday, and bought tickets for the 2:45 ferry. We had to pay a little extra for our bikes, but they were treated with great care by the ferry staff, tied down securely in the parking area (the ferry also took a limited number of cars). We were able to relax in the comfy air-conditioned seats, buy over-priced ice cream, and take numerous pictures from the deck of the ferry during the 25-minute ride across to Irago. Then it was back on the bikes again.
We didn't really know where we were going, except that the coast was nice, we were a bit hungry, and it was getting on to 4:00 and we desperately needed a swim. We also only had a couple of hours of decent light left to find a campsite, as they don't have daylight savings in Japan so the sun still sets very early. We rode out of Irago and along a coastal road, which actually travelled up the side of a very large hill (this was a bit of a chore after all the riding we'd done that day) in order to examine our options. Seeing what appeared to be a semi-large settlement to the east of us (in the direction away from Irago), we set ourselves down the hill (after much negotiation of pedestrian paths vs. crazy dangerous-looking curvy roads--we opted for the paths). As it turned out, there was virtually NOTHING down there. What we had seen was a bunch of greenhouses operated by local farmers--but there were no real other buildings to be seen. After riding for several kilometres, we managed to find a "flower park" (sort of tourist exhibit with gardens and such) and, a bit further down the road, a Circle-K variety store. This was extremely important to us because (as I mentioned before), we hadn't brought any food and were planning on buying it all as we went along
03 - Yucky Beach
. Seeing as we didn't want to be too far from food and water, we decided to find a place on the beach that was relatively close by. There was a pedestrian footpath than ran the length of the beach (we have no idea how far, but probably tens of kilometres) so we rode along it until we found a little opening to let us onto the beach. Then, finally, we swam.After being covered in various layers of sweat and sunscreen for ten hours, it was great. The current was pretty strong, and the waves were quite large at the shore, but it was nothing we couldn't handle, so we dove in. We probably swam and played in the waves for over half an hour before we decided it was time to get out and get organized. After that, it was time to find a decent campsite, get some food, and sleep.
We went back to the Circle-K for some dinner (keep in mind that convenience stores in Japan come stocked with pre-prepared meals like sushi and pasta and salads, so we weren't eating junk food or anything), and then rode back down the beach until we found a flat area to pitch our tents. It wasn't actually on the beach, mind you, it was more of a gravel parking lot-type-place, but it was abandoned, and there was a grassy area along the side, so it was as good as anywhere else. We pitched our tents just as it was getting dark, sat around chatting for a while, but quickly decided it was time for bed. We were probably all asleep by about 8:30pm.
I woke up a few times during the night as it was very hot in our tent (it was sort of cheap to begin with, and the air around us was pretty still), and finally crawled out around 4:30am (when the sun was on its way up) and slept for another hour on the grass outside
04 - Tetrapods
. By 6am (this was Monday morning now), everyone was up and pretty much ready to go, so we packed up everything and set out for the Circle-K to get some breakfast. We decided we didn't want to ride much that day (we mostly wanted to lie around on the beach), and we also figured we should head back towards Irago to camp so that we'd be near the ferry for Tuesday morning (we all knew we had a looong ride ahead of us back to Nagoya). But we wanted to explore a bit, and Chris and I needed to find a bank machine. So after getting some information from a nice man at the Circle-K, and partaking in some pre-prepared breakfast, we headed in a northerly direction, to the north side of the peninsula. It was during this time that we realized how terrible truly HOT weather can be. Riding along asphalt roads, with the temperature up around 38 degrees, plus i-don't-even-want-to-guess-how-much humidity, we had to stop about every 7 minutes to re-hydrate and catch our breath. By this time, we were all wearing water-soaked towels on our heads, which dried out after about 5 minutes. We stopped at several gas stations, and every Circle-K we found, to re-wet the towels. I re-applied sunscreen about every 15 minutes. Even so, I could feel my skin burning under the sun.We managed to make it to the small town we were looking for (with bank machine) and ate breakfast at a cute little restaurant called "Mother Pocket", where we had salad, pancakes, eggs, and coffee
05 - Rest
. Then we headed back along the burning asphalt to Irago, where we arrived about 30 or 40 minutes later, exhausted and anxious for another swim.Once again, we found the local Circle-K (a lifesaver!) and decided to stay near the town for the night. We found a great seafood restaurant for lunch (the air-conditioning was enough of a draw for us, but they also had live fish and lobster in a tank in the front!) and enjoyed tempura, sushi, sashimi, and various other Japanese delicacies. Chris Rule had his sashimi served to him on a bed of fish-skeleton, complete with the head (and eyes, of course!). This was a sign that it was fresh. Cool. It was only about 1pm at this point, but we were sure we wanted to relax for the rest of the day. So we headed back to a stretch of beach just up the road from Irago, which we had seen on the way in but decided not to stop at on Sunday. The beach was probably about 50 yards wide, and we found a wonderful flat grassy area on the beach (behind a hill, completely hidden from view) where we set up our tents. Of course, we plunged into the water, which was great. By this point, we had at least twenty layers of sweat, sunscreen, bugspray, and salt (from the previous day's swim). Yet somehow, the prospect of adding another layer of salt didn't seem to matter much. We swam for a long time, and then took a nice nap in the shelter we had constructed out of the tarp. The sun was still beating down, but by four o'clock, it had eased up a bit and we went out to explore the souvenir shops along the beach. There were only three or four of them, and they were all basically the same--filled with dust-covered beach toys and strange trinkets, but each one served fresh clams, live from a tank and straight onto the grill. We didn't partake in any of the food, but watched with interest.
06 - Rest2
For dinner that evening, Chris, Chris Rule and I decided to find a local seafood restaurant, while Kyle and Joanne opted to stay behind. Joanne is a vegetarian, so a fish-filled diner wasn't really her style. After much searching (including a visit to the local expensive hotel), we found a nice little place on a side street and ate tempura and pork. At about 9pm, we headed back to camp, where we built a campfire on the beach, lit off some fireworks, and stayed up talking until at least midnight. Finally, it actually felt like a vacation, and we could have been on any beach, anywhere in the world. It seemed a bit like having a fire at Bruce Beach for a while, although the beach was about three times as wide. Anyway, it was great :)
I slept much better that night, as we got a nice breeze from the beach, and we woke up around 7 or 8am. After packing up the camp, and going for one more swim, we headed for the ferry docks. At this point, I was dreading the ride back to Nagoya. It was clear that Tuesday was going to be another hot, sunny day, and that we weren't going to be blessed with the cloud-and-rain cover that we'd gotten on the way down. In addition, I had realized about half-way through the day on Sunday that my bike seat was far too low (I needed an extender-bar, but there was nowhere to buy one) and I was basically doing all of the peddalling work with my knees instead of my upper legs. This meant that I was in a small amount of pain, but more importantly, I simply could not keep up with the rest of the crew, no matter how hard I tried. There just aren't those kinds of muscles in your knees--there was nothing I could do about it.
We caught the ferry around 10am and decided to ride as far as we could before giving up
07 - Chris
. While the others didn't have the seat problem I did, Chris Rule wanted to get back to Nagoya at a decent time as he was in the process of moving into a new apartment, and it was clear that the ride was going to take a long time. The weather was like it had been on Monday, when we had stopped every 7 minutes to get more water. That was fine when we were only going 8 kilometres or so. It was very different when we were going to attempt another 60.As we were leaving Morozaki, we stopped at another Circle-K for breakfast, and then we were off. From the outset, it was clear that the heat was going to make things difficult. We decided to make for Kowa, a small town about 10 kilometres north, where we could catch the Meitetsu train into Nagoya. For me, those 10k were the most difficult of the trip, as the sun was beating down (I had to re-apply sunscreen about every 10 minutes) and my knees were woefully protesting every effort I made. When we finally got to Kowa, it was decided that Chris, Chris Rule and I would hop on the train, while Kyle and Joanne chose to slug it out and bike the total distance back. After some negotiation with the Meitetsu station staff, we were able to take our bikes on the train. (An aside: you're not really supposed to take bikes on the train. Some bikes are foldable--yes, foldable--and you can put them in special bags, sling them over your shoulder, and carry them on. Otherwise, if you have regular bikes like ours, you're not allowed. We played the "stupid gaijin" card by wrapping our bikes in tarps ("Look! They're in bags!") and carrying them on. The train wasn't too crowded, so the station master just rolled his eyes and motioned us through. Phew.)
The train ride back up to Kanayama station in Nagoya was about 50 minutes
08 - Ferry
. It would have taken us at least another 4 hours to ride (I believe Kyle and Joanne made it back around 6pm), and it was great to sit in an air-conditioned car and be whisked off to our destination. Had I had a proper seat-bar, and had the weather been cooler (spring or fall would have been lovely), I would have been happy to do it. As it was, though, I still felt pretty accomplished about the whole thing. In total, we rode about 114 kilometres (Kyle and Joanne did a lot more), and managed to make it out of the city. We have definite plans to head back down to Irago, either by train in the summer, or by bike in the fall, so we can go swimming and have a campfire again. In the meantime, let me say that I was very glad to be home. I don't think I've enjoyed a shower more in my life. When we got home, after we cleaned up, Chris and I slept for a long time. But it was definitely worth it.
