Day 9: Gero to Fujimi

We woke early this morning from our onsen-induced comas and set to work doing all the chores that we just couldn't be arsed finishing the night before. Foremost of these, was getting the day's routes reviewed and finalised in Google MyMaps, and uploading them to the GPSs. By 9:30am we had the bags packed and on the bikes, and with no breakfast on offer at ryokan Ramuneya we were ready to go.

Ryokan Ramuneya in the light of day.

There was just one more thing to do before we left Gero, and that was to buy a present for our host for this evening, Noriko's mum Sachiyo. We sauntered up the road to the souvenir shop and soon the purchase, and several others, was soon made. By 10:00am we were finally on the bikes and heading out of town.

About to leave Gero.

Our planned route for the day was to take us from Gero to Ena and the famous gorge there, up the Kiso valley to Shirojiri and then down the Chuo freeway into Nagano and our destination the tiny hamlet of Fugimi.

Today's route from Gero to Fujimi in Nagano Prefecture.

It was significantly colder this morning compared to further south and we found ourselves padded out with our thermal under layers and glove liners. Once on the road we were greeted with some of the autumn leaves that we had seen coming into Gero the previous day. To be honest though, the ride down to Ena was pretty uninspiring. We passed through a bit of urban, a bit of suburban and a bit of rural countryside, but nothing too spectacular and no great motorcycling roads.

Continuing in the same vein, Ena gorge proved to be a bit of a disappointment. The were some trees, and yes there was some water, and even a statue of some dude with a halo, but nothing worth writing home about. On the Turner attractions scale, Ena gorge gets 2 big yawns.

Ena Gorge. Uninspiring.

From Ena gorge we saddled up, still not having eaten even though it was now after midday, and headed east to a small postal town called Magome. This town, along with several others in the Kiso region, was historically situated on the old Nakasendo road (middle road) which linked Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto.

Magome, one of the famous postal towns on the ancient Nakasendo road.

The town was very interesting, with some rustic buildings, souvenir shops and the like, but we only had eyes for food. Starving we descended on the first thing we saw - a shop selling dango. These are basically balls of sticky rice (mochi) shoved on a stick and coated with a sweet sauce. No sooner had we arrived at the window to the store, than a film crew descended on us. You can see them in the photo below filming Richard and Lucas ordering at the window.

Ordering mochi on a stick (dango) in Magome, watched by TV crew.

With dango in hand, we three were asked to stand together and eat while they filmed us. Three uber cool biker gaijin self-consciously eating dango? Sugoi! We managed a oishi (delicious) as we finished the sticks. The footage will reportedly be part of a programme going to air in November. One of the guys gave us his card, so hopefully I will be able to get a hold of the video and post it here - stay tuned! In all the rush I didn't even get a picture of our dango, or us standing eating like gimps. Damn.

One dango stick doesn't go too far, so after our brush with fame we looked for something else. What we eventually settled on was a couple of oyaki, one with eggplant for Lucas and one with "forest vegetable" (that kinda tastes like sweet spinach) for me. Richard satisfied himself with supermarket bento fare.

Eating Oyaki in Megome.

Having finished our meagre lunch we climbed back on the bikes and headed north up the Kiso Valley. Although the route (19)  provided little in the way of corners or other motorcycling excitement, the valley vista itself proved spectacular. Autumn leaves were even more in evidence than in previous days, and as we progressed farther north, the Minami alps became visible as an ever-present backdrop. As we travelled the temperature steadily dropped from 16 degrees to Megome to 12 degrees, to 10 degrees closer to Shirojiri.

Riding Route 19 in the beautiful Kiso Valley.

We continued up the valley on route 19 until we reached one of the most famous postal towns in the region, the town of Narai. Narai is comprised of one long street, maybe 800 metres long and looks like the set from a Kurosawa samurai western. Amazing stuff.

Narai, an amazingly impressive postal town.

We wandered the town, checking out some shops and appreciating the autumn trees all around us. I topped up with another dango as we walked along. Not really substantial enough for a whole days riding in the increasingly cold air, but needs must in a pinch.

Eating dango again, this time with picture.

Narai - one of the finest examples of a Nakasendo road postal town.

Beautiful Kiso Valley autumn leaves, seen from Narai.

More autumn leaves in Narai, as backdrop to the local temple.

Narai's famous wooden bridge.

With time ticking down and sunset fast approaching, we pulled on our thickest of thermal inners, jumped back on the bikes, and burned rubber up the remainder of the Kiso valley to Shirojiri. Here, while the Nagano alps loomed large on both sides of us, we were able to transfer to the Chuo expressway for the final stage to Fujimi.

We arrived at Fujimi at 5:15pm, just as the last rays of light were fading. We were welcomed by Sachiyo into her beautiful log cabin home and sat down to a beautiful meal.

Beautiful dinner with Sachiyo in her home.

With eyes drooping, we got the route planned, took a bath and crawled into bed exhausted. 

Day 8: Nabari to Gero

We all woke with a start this morning - it was 8am and we had overslept! Unfortunately we had organised breakfast for 7am with the nice lady who served us dinner the night before, so we felt really bad as we threw on our yukata and top coats and ran to the dining room. Unfortunately, since we were placed in the room farthest from anywhere (gaijin should be not seen and not heard) this took a good long while. In the end everything was OK - our breakfast was waiting for us at our allotted table, as was our attendant with a smile.

Getting ready to leave the Shorenji Lake Hotel.

After breakfast we downloaded the day's route to the GPS, packed up our shit and were out the door by 9:30am. It was another day without rain, although a little cloudy and hazy.

Our planned route, Nabari to Gero, which we actually stuck to!

Our plan for the day was to ride up to the Suzuka Skyline, an hour and a half to the north near Hino on route 477, sample it's motorcycling delights, and then make our way north west to Gero - the oldest onsen town in the whole of Japan. Before leaving for good, we took a turn around lake Shorenji which was just starting to show its autumn colours.

Once around Shorenji Lake before leaving Nabari

The lake circumnavigated, we headed straight for the Skyliner. After an easy ride with surprisingly little traffic (the nightmares of the evening before were still fresh in our minds) we arrived at our destination to be greeted by a rustic motorcycle rider's cafe. We took half an hour to get some caffeine into our blood, and blood into our arses, before tackling the Skyliner itself. The owner of the cafe was a weird old coot, but very friendly and he wished well on our ride up the mountain.

Biker's cafe at the start of the Suzuka Skyline

We climbed back on our bikes and turned up route 477 to start the twisting and turning journey to the summit.

Off we go - route 477 on the double.

With all things said and done, the Skyliner was a pleasant ride. The road had many sweeping curves and several alarming hairpins that all served to make the riding interesting. The cambre on some turns was a little wonky and the powers that be had installed speed ridges on many of the corners, making smooth cornering very difficult. Worse for us, early into the ride we came upon a minibus and a car taking the climb at their leisure. We had to repeatedly hang back for a few turns to let them get ahead so that we could accelerate up to speed for a few more. We did this several times on the journey to the top, but the crawling in first gear gave us time to enjoy the autumn leaves which were here even more apparent than the previous day.

Sazuka Skyline, great autumn colours, but note the speed ridges on the road.

On the descent especially, the speed ridges on the corners really started to give me the shits. I was actually glad to get back to flat land to leave them behind. All they really suceeded in doing was to shake up my bladder, and the end-result was a toilet-stop in the bush when we reached the bottom.

Toilet stop at the end of the Skyliner.

Yep those are the mountains we rode over.

Once relieved in the Japanese foliage, we made straight for Gero. Again, the ride was uneventful. We managed to successfully navigate the on and off-ramps of the expressway system circling Nagoya, and the GPS functioned admirably.

As an aside, we have found that the process of importing long routes into the Garmin GPS does not always provide the riding experience you expect with regards to the visiting of waypoints. Sometimes the GPS will traverse all waypoints as requested, but if it ever needs to recalculate, all bets are off. The safest mechanism we have found is to create multiple routes, one for each segment of the ride, and follow them individually in sequence. 

Anyway, we proceeded on route 41 to Gero. Half an hour into the trip, around 2:30pm, we decided to stop for a late lunch. We found a great little eatery on the side of route 41 that specialised in individual grill thingys. We ordered some pork ribs and cooked them there on our table.

Lunch - Pork ribs on the griddle. 

Apparently my chopstick use is admirable

The shop owners were very friendly and asked many questions about our trip, as did some local dude who came in to eat shortly after us. Apparently they were impressed by our use of chopsticks (go figure) so I'm not sure what kind of goobers they've had in there before us. The story of the 3 riding gaijin will probably be told for generations to come.

Jumping back on the bikes we returned to route 41 and found that it soon started winding it's way up a spectacular gorge next to a wide river. The trees were just amazing with their autumn colours coming on and the temperature was getting noticeably cooler the further on we travelled. At one stage I saw a temperature sign for 12 degrees, but presumably it got colder than that as the sun went down.

With 45k to go to Gero my fuel light came on. With no way of knowing how many kms I had left to ride (my bike is a tad unsophisticated) I strong-armed Lucas and Richard into stopping for fuel. The petrol station was manned as usual by a group of attendants. The nice lady that looked after my petrol requirements gave me an impromptue Japanese lesson "hi oku",  "mantan", "cashu". High Octane fuel, fill it to the top, I'll pay cash.

My language teacher hard at work.

As Lucas pointed out later, my pronunciation of "hi-oku", which I proceeded to repeat over and over while she was filling the tank, sounded more like "hiaku" which basically means "hurry the fuck up". Of course he didn't tell me this at the time (he got a giggle out of it :) ). Despite everything, the group of attendants waved us off with smiles as we departed.

We rode towards Gero as the sun slowly descended behind us. Finally, just before 5pm, we reached the town centre and located our ryokan in its heart, down near the river. We got our shit unpacked and immediately decided to head out to an outdoor onsen (rotemburo) across the river (recommended by our host).

We walked to the rotemburo, which was situated on the edge of the river and out in the open air. It was fantastic - the best so far on this trip. We had the place all to ourselves, and were able to sample its many delights without restraint. There was a hot-box sauna, various hot pools including bubbles and jets, and also a number of cold pools for cooling off. All in a wonderful outdoor setting. Because there was noone else around we could even sneak a phone in to snap a few quick photos.

The rotemburo in Gero. Heaven.

Anyway, we whiled away a good hour in the hot water before wandering back for some pokari sweat and other beverages of choice, and a dinner of ramen and gyoza. It's now time for bed and hopefully an early rise for tomorrow's ride!

Day 7: Yunomine Onsen to Nabari

We woke very early again this morning (6:30am) in preparation for an early start. Our planned route is nearly 5 hours long and history tells us that in practise it will be almost double that. In fact our route ended up being what is shown below. Our travel time was 2 hours more than google's estimate.

The final route taken today

Anyway, breakfast in the minshikyu was amazing as always, and we dallied a little longer than we would have liked before finally getting moving.

Breakfast in Minshiku Kuraya 

Finally the panniers were packed, the bikes turned around in the small lane beside the minshikyu, and we were ready to go. We jumped on, revved the engines and bid farewell to the strong sulphur smell of Yunomine Onsen.

Early morning packing beside the steaming sulphurous village stream. 

Right from the start things didn't go to plan. The GPS took us on a nice little ride north along route 168, following a beautiful gorge but taking us away from our intended destination - the Ryujin Skyline. When we finally realised something was wrong, we decided to take the time hit and turn around.

Back down route 168 a ways, we stopped to get petrol and asked the station attendant for directions to the skyline. He suggested route 735 (as opposed to route 245 which was our only other choice) to get us there. This was a road that we didn't even know existed - one of the tiny tertiary roads that appear in white when you get google maps to zoom right in.

Directions from a very happy, and very helpful petrol station attendant.

Turns out, Mr Petrol Station gave us the good oil indeed. Route 735 turned out to be a fantastic ride through the very heart of rural Wakayama. The road twisted and turned, down to one lane for most of it's length and winding its way up the side of a steep valley, over the ridge and down the other side.

Riding route 375. 

For portions of the route there was no guard rail and the side of the road just plummeted down hundreds of metres to the winding stream far below. A perfect road for motorbikes, and an adventure all on its own! It added 1.5 hours to the day, but it was a really, really amazing ride. Completely different to anything we had ridden on previous days.

Route 375: This is the real rural Wakayama.

As route 375 levelled out and neared Ryujin, we stopped to ask more directions from a friendly bunch of tree-shapers working on someones front garden. Yet again we were given as much help as we needed. The dude that spoke to us even offered to show us the way in person! We've had such an amazing reception, and such a lot of genuinely friendly help from everyone we have met so far on this trip.

More directions from the friendly neighbourhood tree shaper. 

Turns out, Mr Petrol Station's directions put us right at the start of the Skyliner. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Before it really got going though, we stopped in Ryujin for some curry-rice to refuel our weary bodies. It's cheap, it's stodgy and its powerful stuff.

A quickstop for curry-rice is just what we needed. 

Fed and watered, it time to tackle the Skyliner (route 311 north). This turned out to be an another amazing motorcycle road with wide sweeping curves heading up and up to the top of Koyosan (at altitude of 1000m). On the way up we saw our first glimpses of really true autumn colours - one of the things we were hoping to see during a trip at this time of year.

A taste of autumn colours. If only we were here a little later!

The trees were starting to show their colours, with all different shades of yellow red and green all on display at once. They're not close to their best yet, but they certainly put smiles on our faces today. I can only imagine what they will look like in the coming weeks, Hopefully as we head further north in the coming days the leaves will be even better.

At the top of the Ryujin Skyliner.

At the top of the Skyline we parked and took a few photos. We were approached by a very friendly Japanese man, strung with cameras, and who wanted to take our photo. Of course we posed for him with our bikes and are now expecting an amazing portrait from him via email or facebook.

After leaving the Skyliner, we delved back into the country roads of Wakayama, continuing on route 311. We again twisted and turned down into a deep valley and out the other side before finally reaching civilisation - a vast urban sprawl that we finally descended into on our way to our final destination - Nabari an the Shorenji Lake Hotel.

Unfortunately, we descended at 4:00pm, just in time for peak hour. It was like a descent into hell. The last 60 kms of our journey took two and a half hours of stop-start traffic, and we hated every minute of it.

We arrived, finally, totally exhausted to our hotel the Shorenji Lake Hotel. Thankfully the wonderful dinner laid on by the hotel, and the gracious, helpful lady serving us helped to restore our spirits. There's just the onsen to try out now and I'm sure it will exceed expectations.

An aweful photo, but a superb dinner at Shorenji Lake Hotel.

Postscript: We just tried the onsen and it was indeed awesome. It took literally 15 seconds after our arrival for the 4 old Japanese guys sitting in the outdoor bath to leave and find water elsewhere. I would be the first to admit that the sight of 3 naked white dudes is pretty scary, but come on!

Day 6: Toba to Yunomine Onsen

We woke very weary this morning to the sound of music outside our window. The primary school kids that are sharing our hotel were out in the carpark doing their morning calisthenics. We should have gone out and joined them! After 2 hard days riding the aches and pains are starting. Sunburn was still glowing on our faces, and general dehydration is a bit of an issue. The sky today is as clear and blue as the last two days, and promises to be another hot one. I still can't believe how lucky we have been with the weather!

The route today promises some amazing scenery in Mie and Wakayama. The plan is to ride from Toba to Ise over the Ise Skyline - a road that twists and turns its way over the mountain pass separating the two coastal towns. From Ise, we'll work our way down the east coast of Mie and then cut inland  to our destination - Yunomine Onsen.

Today's route from Toba to Yunomine Onsen.

So after a beautiful Japanese buffet breakfast, we finally left the Senpokaku Hotel in Toba at around 9:30am. A little later than we would have liked, but not too bad. We stopped immediately at the CircleK at the bottom of the hill to get some sunscreen. After much fussing and searching by the diligent staff, some SPF50+ was produced and duly purchased. The sun can now officially go to hell. Who would have thought we'd need sunscreen when we are each carrying our own weight in thermal and wet weather gear!

Soon we were at the foot of the Ise Skyline and raring to go! With no electronic toll on this road we had to stop to pay cash, but with the transaction completed the nice man in the booth waved us on. Off we dutifully tore and in no time we were at the summit.

The view at the top of the skyline overlooking Toba.

As you can see from the video, the riding itself was nothing short of breathtaking. Although the speed limit was 40km/h (an unfortunate problem with many secondary roads here in Japan) we managed to ride a touch faster than this and get in some wonderful cornering around the many sweeping bends and tight switchbacks. It was with very wide smiles on our faces that we finally pulled into Ise for fuel.

My pit crew hard at work.

After asking the station attendants for directions, we found the Kisei Highway heading to Awase and burned rubber at the absolutely breakneck speed of ... 80km/h down the highway.  Man the speed limits here are the pits. Despite the speed restrictions (that to be honest we don't always follow), and the tunnels - many, many, many tunnels - the ride along the Kisei was just beautiful; with high wooded hillsides, deep valleys, and wide gorges filled with gravel and turquoise rivers.

Riding along the Kisei Highway.

Just before the end of the Kisei, we stopped for lunch at a truck stop at the side of the highway to stave off tiredness and refuel for the next leg. We had definitely earned our coffee and ramen - although I had some issues with the ordering system, and inability to answer even the most simple questions.

Truck-stop ramen and coffee. Lunch of champions.

Fueled-up on caffeine and noodles, we pulled back onto the freeway and were soon on route 42 headed for Kumano on the coast. Again the route down to the coast was beautiful and we had little traffic to hold us up.

At one point, route 42 split into route 42 and route 42. Confused, we stopped our bikes close to a flag waving stop-go man at the side of the road. Faced with 3 gaijin in motorcycle helmets, something that certainly wasn't on his agenda for this or any day, the guy was visibly very nervous! While he was genuinely helpful and tried his best to give us the information we needed, he was shaking a little and had to go to his thermos for a sip of tea half way through the conversation. In the end he told us what we needed to know and was so happy with the outcome that he shook hands and sent us on our way with a smile.

In no time we arrived at Kumano and jut happened to park our bikes right next to the famous, world-heritage-listed, Shishi Iwa - just one of the uber famous rocks on the Kumano coast.

Shshi Iwa and BMWs and some hairless idiot.

Having helped some kind Japanese ladies with their photo taking requirements, they offered to take our photo too. While Lucas laid on the grass pretending to review the map, Richard and I posed for a quick snap.

World heritage 

The route in hand yet again, we jumped back on the bikes and headed for route 311, finally heading inland from Kumano towards Hongu. And what a beautiful ride we had! Route 311, along with the Ise Skyline, is now etched in our memories as one of the best riding roads to date. A great mixture of sweeping bends, zero traffic and beautiful scenery combined to make our day.

Running down route 311. What an amazing ride!

After route 311, we changed to route 169, 168 and back to 311 enroute to Yunomine Onsen. All these roads provided a great riding experience strung end to end over the course of the afternoon.

The bridge over Dorokyo Gorge, joining route 169 with 168.

Finally we made the last turn towards Yunomine Onsen, and wound our way up the small secluded valley. We arrived to be greeted with a village square surrounded by Minshuku. The GPS coordinates we had could have refered to any one of them! We had to ask which one was Minshuku Kuraya - our bed for the night. Turns out it was the most beautiful one, right on the edge of the river with a smiling hostess and it's very own onsen.

Gaijin on noisy machines invade the idyllic village square.

Munshuku Kuraya, our home away from home.

Bikes parked in the small available space.

Kyuraya's private onsen hut on the river's edge.

With a little time to spare for once, we wandered around the town, rehydrating and snapping photos as we went. Unfortunately, half an hour after we arrived a bus load of european tourists disgorged onto the street and filed into an establishment across the river. We selfishly rued their arrival as spoiling the purity of the place. Hypocritical? Maybe. But hey, it's my story.

The beautiful village of Yunomine Onsen.

With a quick bath before dinner, we donned our yukata and felt immediately more comfortable. Minshuku Kuraya is a beautiful place to stay. In no time our dinner was served and we sat down to yet another traditional Japanese meal. Amazing.

Dinner is served.

Loving every mouthful.

Well, dinner is over and the blog is done. Time now to go soak in the onsen and then drink 5 litres of water. Or maybe Pokari Sweat. Either way it will be wet all round.