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!