Shikoku

The first 200 km were pretty flat

In the spring of 2024 I had set aside three weeks of vacation time to cycle in Japan again (see Kyushu from 2023). This time I wanted to join the Shikoku Circuit Cycling challenge, cycling the whole 1000 km around the island of Shikoku! The challenge sadly costs money to join, but you do get a nice cycling jersey and a stamp book. Yes, you read that right, a stamp book. On your way around the island you have to stop at these road stations or 道の駅 (michi no eki) as it’s called in Japanese, to get your book stamped. When you finish the circuit, you send in a picture of your stamp book, and proof of route, and you receive a diploma and a medal - which turned out to be a belt buckle!

With the route fixed I started to look for interesting stops, and decide if I wanted to go for tenting or hotels this time. The mix I did last year didn’t really fit me, so this year I decided to not bring a tent and go for hotels every night. I also didn’t want to waste time every night looking for my next stay, so I ended up booking all of my hotels in advance. That worked really well for me, and I only ended up canceling one stay, because of bad weather.

Verdict (TL;DR)

Shikoku was a really beautiful island, and I can fully recommend doing the Shikoku Circuit Cycling challenge! Since I was doing the circuit, I followed the coast the whole way around, but there are some really pretty mountains and valleys inland that I would love to visit another time. If you read a bit about cycling Shikoku you will always come across people not recommending cycling the north side, and I can understand why. The south of Shikoku is really beautiful, has less traffic, and is more deserted. The north is the opposite - there is a nearly 300 km long stretch with cities and houses, plus plenty of cars and trucks. I’m pretty happy with my road choices in the north as I didn’t have any bad experiences with cars or trucks. If the circuit hadn’t gone around the north I would’ve probably headed into the mountains after Imabari and done the UFO Line.

There were very few cars driving outside the bigger roads

The route

The route I took, each day having its own color

My route (on RideWithGCP)

The official route (en)

I started off tracing the official route into RideWithGPS to see where it actually went, as the map on cycling-island-shikoku.com is not very precise. It turns out the official route is following the old main road, meaning that there is a lot of tunnels, especially in the south. With that in mind I started out making my own route, trying to stick to the official route as close as possible, but avoiding most of the tunnels. My route ended up at 1171km, which is not that much longer.

Another difference between my route and the official route is that I started in Imabari. Meaning I had to get back to Matsuyama when I finished the circle, as the ferry to Hiroshima departs from Matsuyama.

Transportation

As I started with riding the Shimanami Kaido there wasn’t any transportation for me. I would highly recommend starting the Shikoku circuit by riding it, it’s beautiful!

If you’re skipping the Shimanami Kaido I would recommend starting from Matsuyama, as the official route does. Taking a train or plane to Hiroshima, and then a ferry is probably the easiest way to get to Matsuyama.

This is how I transport my bike while in Japan

Accommodation

For this trip I opted for hotels, ryokans, and hostels for each night. Everything was also pre-booked a couple of months in advance. This also meant that I needed to cycle the distance planned each day, as most of my bookings were non-refundable when my trip started. The average price for each night was around ¥5000, and I can recommend every place I stayed at! Hotel Orange (ホテルオレンジ) in Misakiura even included dinner and breakfast! Most of the bookings were done through Booking.com, but some were through direct e-mails, or the accommodation’s own site.

What I’m happy I did

I’m really happy with my planning for this trip, as having all the accommodations sorted beforehand made every day a little bit easier. Also having each day planned down to each turn made it easier to enjoy the scenery and look out for places I had not spotted beforehand. I’m a true believer that having a fixed course makes it easier to enjoy the ride, as you have a red thread to follow. Of course if you’re not riding on fixed time, you don’t really need a red thread, but if your trip is time boxed as mine was, planning is gold!

It took me a while to understand that everything looks better with my sunglasses off

Challenges

This trip went really smoothly, and my biggest hurdle was that I got a cold on day four, that I didn’t get rid of before day six. Luckily, I got some Japanese medicine and had a rest day on day five, so all in all, it wasn’t that bad. I was also really lucky with the weather! The first rainy day was on my first rest day, and I managed to move my second rest day to fit with the second rainy day. The only rain I encountered while cycling was for three hours at the end of the day cycling from Kōchi to Susaki.

I also decided to be more flexitarian on this trip, instead of strictly vegetarian, which made finding dinner a lot easier.

What would I change for my next trip

I’m pretty pleased with my planning, and how I spent my days on this trip. The distance each day fit the area I was cycling through. Shorter distances when I wanted to stop a lot, and longer distances when there where few things to see. What I did forget to plan for is hiking Takaya Shrine (高屋神社). It was marked on my map, but on the same day I also had to ride 75km and visit the beautiful Ritsurin Garden (栗林公園). The weather wasn’t the best for a view from the top, so I’m glad I didn’t squeeze it in, but I want to return to experience it!

Would be nice to visit these beaches in the summer and surf

One thing I regret not bringing with me was my international driver’s license. I’d gotten one made since I was staying two more weeks after my cycling trip, and was going to rent a car to visit Hakone. With the driver’s license I could have driven up to hike Mount Ishizuchi. The original plan was to to hike it after I’d cycled around, but since they were doing maintenance on the ropeway that takes you up to 1300m I skipped it. The maintenance was only ongoing for the week I had planned to hike the mountain, so I was really unfortunate with my timing there.

My trip

Day 1, 106km, 734m - First day on my trip around Shikoku

This wall of threads was pretty cool to walk past

The first day on my trip around Shikoku was longer than I remembered, I had to hurry a bit at the end to reach the first stamp at a roadside station (道の駅). During the first day I visited a towel museum (タオル美術館). Not sure what I expected it to be about, and not sure what I’m left with afterwards. It felt very Japanese, and it was a nice area, but as a cycling detour it was a bit of a miss.

Getting the first stamp was a pretty cool feeling, a “finally my trip has started” kind of feeling! As I arrived just before closing time I didn’t have much time to experience the first road station, but looking back it looked like one of the more boring ones with only tourist information. A lot of the other ones I visited had food and snacks for sale.

I mostly followed these arrows around the whole island

Not far from the road station was the Zenigata Sunae (Coined-shape Sand Art) (銭形砂絵(寛永通宝)) which was pretty cool to look at. The hill up was pretty steep, so it was a good challenge at the end of the day. Afterwards I went to a hotel onsen, before I headed over to my hotel further into the city of Kanonji.

For dinner I went to a chicken restaurant called Jujuan (じゅじゅ庵（骨付鳥）), where I ended up talking with the couple sitting next to me at the bar. They were from the area, and it was fun to chat with the locals. Also two unusual things happened that night: first was that the waiter wanted a selfie with me, out of the blue, and I also got a CD by Hiroshi Miyama which is a Japanese enka singer. Not sure why I got the CD, but the restaurant had a lot of Hiroshi memorabilia! So for now it’s a nice memory of that evening, as I don’t have a CD-player to play it on.

Day 2, 73km, 627m - First (and only) missing stamp

Not sure what happened to the floor of this bridge

My itinerary had climbing the hundreds of stairs all the way up to Takaya Shrine (高屋神社) as the first stop, but I had forgotten to set off the time needed to do it. So instead I cycled past it, looking up to what I could do next time I was in the area.

Next stop was my second stamp at a road station a little bit out of my way around the coast. This road station was a bit up in the mountains, giving me a nice hill to cruise down to the coast again afterwards.

The weather was nice, with a little bit of wind changing between headwind and tailwind. This seemed to a common occurrence cycling around Shikoku. Maybe a bit more tailwind, if I remember correctly.

This road station was closed every Monday

At the next road station, which turned out to be closed on Mondays (the only stamp I didn’t collect) I met a guy from Hong Kong cycling part of the Shikoku circuit challenge. On a full-suspension mountain bike! That’s impressive, since there’s only asphalt going around Shikoku. Next to the road station is Play Park Gold Tower (ゴールドタワー), a 158m tall skyscraper with a strange fish exhibit in it. The view from the top was great, but it was strange looking at the view through an aquarium.

I’m curious if goldfish can experience the view

As planned, I arrived early in Takamatsu, giving me plenty of time to go sightseeing in the wonderful Ritsurin Garden (栗林公園).

The Japanese gardens are really beautiful, and worth visiting

My hotel in Takamatsu was the only one that didn’t really have a place to store my bike, except for just outside hotel. For me that felt a little bit too unsafe in a big city, but I had planned for this, and used my rinko bag to pack down my bike, and bring it up to my room. I had an early night, as I was starting to feel a cold coming on.

Day 3, 96km, 616m - I think I’ve caught a cold

I woke up with a sore throat on the morning of day 3, so I was definitely coming down with something. Even though I was feeling it in my legs, and throat, the ride felt fast. There wasn’t much to experience on the road, so not many breaks. The highlight of the day was probably the random World War 2 outdoor “museum”, where a replica of a kamikaze plane and submarine was placed on a small gravel field. The sign for 人間魚雷 回天１型レプリカ was really small, but I’m glad I turned around to check it out. A rule of thumb is to generally stop if you’re curious about something, you rarely regret stopping, but I keep regretting not stopping.

I was supposed to take a ferry from an island I cycled out onto, but it turned out it didn’t depart that often, so I had to bike back and onto a car road. So the last 20km was tiresome as I was riding next to a busy road in the city of Tokushima.

This was another closed road, with several big art pieces

I went out for a beer that evening, and found this really cool izakaya called Yaninju (沖縄居酒屋 やーにんじゅー), which is Okinawa themed. There was only one other guest that night, and I quickly got to chatting with him and the bar owners. The food and drinks were good, and they were playing Okinawa music! One of the owners also took out his sanshin (三線) and started playing it! It was a blast, and I really want to go back.

I was happy I had a rest day next day, as it got late.

Day 4, Rest day with a cold

The weather for my first rest day wasn’t great, it started with rain, then a couple of hours of dry, before the rain started up again. I has also definitely caught a cold, so I went out to buy some Japanese medicine. Since I don’t often take medicines, and it had caffeine in it (I don’t drink coffee), it had a really good effect on me!

The music was pretty intense, matching the dance style

The goal for my rest day was to visit Awaodori Kaikan (阿波おどり会館), and learn more about the traditional Awa Dance Festival held every year in August. It was a moving experience, since after the show, we where invited up on the stage to learn the dance ourselves. I’m not the best dancer, but it was still fun!

After I had danced a bit I took the ropeway up to Bizan Park (眉山公園) too get the gray view of the city (since it was still raining at this time). I even got too see some more cherry blossom trees.

I then visited Tokushima Castle Museum (徳島市立徳島城博物館). Not the most interesting museum, but the park was small and beautiful. Since the rain had stopped I took a walk around the park, and got too see even more cherry blossoms. You could tell that the cherry blossom season had started, as it was now everywhere!

The top of the castle garden was surrounded with cherry trees in bloom

Day 5, 123km, 1101m - First missed road station

I had planned a long day after my rest day, and the weather was promising! As always I was a little bit late starting the day’s ride, but luckily this didn’t turn into a problem. The first exciting thing on day 5 were all the turtles chilling in the small river I was cycling next to. There were so many, and every time I rode past them they all jumped into the river and hid. So it wasn’t easy getting a good photo of them. Shy creatures!

A family of turtles enjoying the sun

I talked to some locals later that day, and they said that the turtles weren’t native to the area, and that they were probably put out and abandoned, which is quite sad. I also later read that turtles (at least pond slider turtles) can be an invasive species.

On a small detour to avoid the big road I saw a lonely monkey sitting next to the road, scampering away when I got close.

As I hadn’t marked the stamp locations on my Garmin map, I managed to cycle past today’s checkpoint! I didn’t figured it out before I was 5km past it, so I had to turn around and cycle back. The funny thing is that I remember the junction where I missed it, as I was paying extra attention to remember to take the correct right turn. I also had really good tail wind, so it was extra work getting back.

It took me three tries before I managed to find the correct entrance to the café

Back on the track it was mostly just road and forest all the way to Shishikui. On the way I had lunch at a café that looked like ruins! It’s called Dai Bosatsu Tōgé (大菩薩峠) and the food was really good too!

I arrived a bit late at the Pension Shishikui (ペンションししくい), so I had to hurry to get some dinner before the last place in town closed for the day. Afterwards I took a dip in the sea, as the pension was in this small bay, on the beach. The water was (not surprisingly) cold, kind of like cold Norwegian summers. Luckily they had a small warm bath I could escape to after my dip. The view was amazing from the pension, and is really worth a stay.

I bet it would be wonderful to stay here in the summer

That night I also found out that this town has a one of a kind bus that runs on train tracks too! So with a little bit of planning I could manage to try it out before breakfast the next day. The plan was to bike to the train station, lock up my bike there, walk ten minutes over to where the bus started. Stay on the bus ‘til it switched to train-mode and jump off at the train station where my bike was!

Day 6, 87km, 400m - A day full of activities

I slept really bad this night, there was something constantly making a humming noise, and some small vibrations. My guess is that it was from the kitchen below me.

It looks a bit clunky

Even though I slept badly I went through with my plan for a bus/train ride before breakfast. I got up at 6:45, which isn’t really early, but I usually slept till 7:30, or 8:00. I quickly dressed, and cycled over to the train station. It was really quiet in the small town, and I didn’t see many people when I walked from the train station over to the bus stop. I had pre-booked tickets, I wasn’t sure how popular the ride would be, and boy was I wrong to worry about getting a spot - I was the only one on the whole 20 minute ride! The bus had a couple of bus stop before it drove onto the train tracks at Kannoura station (甲浦駅), “switched” wheels, and drove as a train back too Shishikui stations (宍喰駅).

It was a fun experience, but it felt like the worst of both worlds. The ride wasn’t really smooth, as it was a heavy bus, but a light train, and it was also really noisy. If you want to know more about this, you should check out Tom Scott’s Youtube video about it.

My first stop of the day (after breakfast) was a closed down children’s school that had been turned into an aquarium! It was quite fun walking through the halls and rooms of an old school. Sadly, as with all the other aquarium I’ve visited in Japan, the tanks are small. So the fish don’t have any space to move, and can hardly turn around. Luckily the water is clean, and there is a current in the water! The extra special thing about this aquarium, since it was in a school, is that they had repurposed the two swimming pools as two pretty big (but shallow) fish tanks! Though there was no vegetation or other features in the pools, so nothing trying to make it look like a natural habitat.

After the aquarium I collected two more stamps for my pamphlet before I found a whale museum! I’ve always thought whales are an interesting species, so it was interesting to learn more about the Japanese whaling culture. The south of Shikoku, and especially around Muroto, has an old history of whale hunting. They sold small tea spoons formed as whales too!

Before rolling into Aki, the city for the night, I stopped to visit [Ioki Cave (伊尾木洞)]https://www.akikanko.or.jp/kanko/iokidou.html). The cave is a short cave opening up into a long and narrow hidden green valley! You can either just pass through the cave, or you can follow the valley to it’s end, and hike out of it. As you are following a shallow river all the way to the end, the ground is wet in most places. So it could be wise to have some shoes that are a bit waterproof. I managed to hike all the way without getting wet, but it required some balancing on rocks here and there.

Even though there was a river running through it, I managed to not get wet

There are also two signs warning you about venomous snakes, and recommending visitors to wear rain boots. I didn’t see any snakes, but that didn’t stop me from being extra careful while walking, and stomping extra hard to hopefully scare the snakes away. At the hotel later that night I asked my host if she had heard or seen any snakes there, but she hadn’t either. The cave and valley were really serene and beautiful, so I fully recommend coming to see them.

My place for the night was one of the places I had to book through e-mail, and I’m really happy that I did! The hostel is Kochi-no-ya (Hostel 東風ノ家-古民家宿&Cafebar-), it’s really small, and the owner was really nice. She even had a small bar each evening for the guests and locals, so a great place to sit and chat.

Day 7, 91km, 574m - Botanical garden, and my first rain day

Originally this was the family house of the owner

I had in advance decided to not visit Kōchi on this trip, I felt I didn’t have the extra day to spare to properly see the city, so maybe next time. What I did want to see was the botanical garden on the outskirts of the city.

Kōchi Prefectural Makino Botanical Garden was on top of a hill, luckily it had a one way street up and down, so not that many cars passed me while I steadily worked my self up. The bike parking was also surprisingly far away from the entrance, but at least there were toilets there, so I could change from my cycling outfit to some regular clothes. The garden was really nice, with a beautiful view over Kōchi city, and endless variations of trees and bushes. They even had a greenhouse with some huge Monstera plants! The garden is named after Dr. Tomitaro Makino, the father of Japanese botany!

I had planned to eat lunch at the garden, but I had chosen to take the scenic route to get there, which didn’t have any konbinis where I could stop for some snacks. So I had gotten really hungry at the end of my garden visit, and with the long queue for the only restaurant at the botanical garden I decided to bounce. There was a a brewery down at the coast, not that far off track, so I decided to eat there instead.

This feels like a good commercial for the brewery

The South Horizon Brewery was located on a small hill inside an industrial area, so it wasn’t straight forward navigating to it, but after stopping several times to look at Google Maps I managed to find it! It stood by itself, with a direct view of the endless Pacific ocean. The brewery looked to be a pretty cool and trendy place, with several interesting beers on tap, even though the food wasn’t great, at least for a vegetarian, I also ended up buying one can of a dark stout, to enjoy at a later time.

Until now I had been lucky to not have been cycling in the rain, but you can’t have it be sunny and warm every day. The sun hadn’t been out all that much on my trip thus far, it had been mostly overcast. So the last two hours to Susaki (須崎市) I was cycling in rain. As I hadn’t really been watching the forecast I had packed most of my rain gear way down in my bags, so I only had easy access to my rain jacket. Because of this I ended up with wet shoes. Luckily I was able to borrow a hair dryer at the ryokan I stayed at to dry out my shoes. It worked pretty well, and they were only slightly damp the next day.

Day 8, 81km, 677m - The start of Shimanto river

When I woke up on day 8 my shoes were nearly dry! Today’s ride would be mostly flat, except for one big hill that would have me climb 250 meters in one go. From there it would be just downhill following the Shimanto river. The weather was gray, but luckily no rain!

A lot of Japanese signs are too cute to be taken serious enough

When I plan a bike trip I do a lot of research to avoid tunnels, especially if they don’t have a foot path. This day was no exception, so I had planned for a pretty nice ride following the coast, instead of going through the mountain. Turns out the road was closed when I arrived at the start of it, not far from the tunnel that I wanted to avoid. It didn’t say why it was closed, and I’ve experienced closed roads before in Japan that were only closed for cars, and since no one was there to stop me, I went for it! My gamble was worth it! It turned out there had been a landslide across the road, but most of it was cleaned up by the time I arrived, and it was not a problem to pass through. I have even cycled worse roads that were actually open in Japan before.

Looks like the landslide didn’t do too much damage

I didn’t see many other bikepackers on my trip around Shikoku, so when I saw someone I always made sure to wave, or stop for a short chat. While cycling through a town called Niida I passed two people on folding bikes, a popular bike for traveling in Japan. As I stopped by a patisserie shortly after, I saw them again when I sat eating a cake outside the store. Not long after that I saw them for a third time, when I stopped at the next road station to get my stamp, but this time we were all off our bikes, so we had time for a chat. They where from Singapore, and it turned out they were also cycling around Shikoku, they were just using twice as long I had planned. They where also heading to the same guesthouse as I was, only they was planning to be there the next night instead of this evening. So maybe I would meet them again!

If you look really closely, you can see traces of an even older road than the one I’m riding on

Later in the day I cycled by the Kaiyodo Hobby Museum (海洋堂ホビー館四万十). It was a medium sized museum with a lot of figures to look at. I only recognized a few of the figures, but it was fun. As other museums I had visited on the trip, there weren’t many other people there.

After the museum I had a visit to another stamp location before arriving at my final stop for the day, Tosa-Taishō (土佐大正). Next to the stamp location was a small park with a park with a windmill made out of stone, they had translated it to Stone a mill, which is a bit funny.

Finally I reached my stay for the night, the Guesthouse Samaru (ゲストハウス). The owner was a friendly and quiet guy in his mid-forties. I was the only guest in the mixed bed room, so I had the whole place to myself. For dinner I went to the only open izakaya in town, and as usual I ended up ordering too much food. I need to get better at order one dish at a time, instead of all at once!

Day 9 - A rainy rest day in Tosa-Taishō

My original plan was to cycle for another day and have my rest day in Nakamura, but because the forecast warned of a lot of rain, I decided to cancel my next hotel and have my rest day in Tosa-Taishō. It also helped that the following day was looking to be a sunny day.

So with a whole day to kill in a small town, I was finished sightseeing in just about an hour. I started by visiting an 800 year old cedar tree, before I looked at the exterior of an old farm house that was relocated to the town. As it was closed today I wasn’t able to look inside it. Afterwards I continued on to visit the local sake and shochu brewery. Because of the language barrier, the woman in the store thought I was interested in seeing the brewery too, so I also got a short tour iside the brewery, where I could look down into the barrels and smell the chestnuts they used for brewing. After the tour we went back to the store and I got to taste three different sakes, and two shochus. It was perhaps a bit early in the day for that much alcohol, but they all tasted good.

They called this the mini Shinkansen

Before heading back to the guest house I had a look around the train station, and I got lucky with the timing. Just before I got to the station both of the local trains had arrived at the station, and seemed to be a short break. So I was able to take a closer look at the two trains. One of them looked like a small bullet train, or Shinkansen as it’s called in Japanese.

When I got back to the guest house my cycling friends from yesterday had arrived, and were checking in. They had battled through the rain, and were ready to have an easy afternoon.

There were cherry blossom petals everywhere in this small town

In the evening we all sat down in the living room, had a beer, relaxed and chatted. It turns out the owner of the guest house was a big fan of an old Japanese TV-show that had visited Norway, way back in the 90’s, so he put it on for us to watch. It was fun to see how much Oslo had changed over the years!

While chatting I also learned that the town had made collectible cards as promotional items, that you could buy in the different stores throughout the town. Some of them were pretty nice, so I went out to buy four of them, to support the small town.

Day 10, 76km, 484m - Lazy river cruising

This was the first day with proper sun since I finished the Shimanami Kaido. The original plan was to follow the main road close to the river all the way down to Nakamura, but because of the good weather I decided to try out some of the many side roads. This also helped me avoid most of the cars.

There were a lot of bridges that were built to be flooded, instead of trying to build them high enough to avoid the floods

On the first road station for the day I was able to ride on a zip-line. I was the only one there, and I had to watch a five minute safety course in Japanese first. I was then driven around to the other side of the river. It was a short zip-line, but I’m glad I took the time to do it.

On the way to the first road station I followed the couple from Singapore, but from there on I went at my own pace.

On one of the side roads there was some road work, and as always there is one guy navigating the traffic. He was busy talking with the other workers, probably because the road was a bit remote, so he didn’t notice me rolling up to the work site. Bikes are quite noiseless, so I got quite surprised when his coworker pointed at me, and he tried to blow his whistle to get the digger to stop, but then dropped the whistle before he finally managed to blow it. It was quite funny to watch him fiddling when he saw me.

It looks like someone has raked the riverbed

For about a year I have followed the Youtube channel maigomika, which is about a Canadian couple living in a Japanese “akiya” house. I was hoping to meet them, but since I didn’t really know where they lived, other than rural Shikoku, the chances were pretty slim. My guess was that they lived next to Shimanto, but that was just a gut feeling, since they often bathed in a big river. It turns out my gut feeling was right! On one of the side roads I saw a couple with a dog coming towards me, and lo and behold, it was Mika, Jesse, and Pancake out on a sunny walk. I stopped and chatted to them for a bit, they were just as lovely in real life as they seem on Youtube. I totally forgot to ask to take a selfie with them, unfortunately, but maybe next time.

Both me and the turtle were enjoying the sun

Before checking in at my hotel for the afternooon, I visited a dragonfly park (四万十市トンボ自然公園). I didn’t see any dragonflies, but several turtles, which are more exotic for me! The whole place was a big wetland reservation, and you could walk around most of the area.

Day 11, 82km, 937m - Strong winds around the cape

It took me a second to see the Kei truck hidden in the overgrown bushes when I cycled past

Today I was back cycling next to the coast, the wind was strong, but luckily not much head wind. I took a bigger detour to avoid a long tunnel, which was really nice. The view was great close to the sea.

Todays trip felt long, especially around Cape Ashizuri. The cape itself had a nice view, but it wasn’t anything special.

When I was a kid I wanted to be a light house guardian

Once in Misakiura I visited a seashell gallery, with way too many seashells. The building itself was also pretty cool, it kinda looked like a boat from the side, but open, and letting in sun from the inside. Afterwards I visited a pretty cool underwater aquarium, where you could look out at the sea bed, and all the fish swimming around. As I went late in the day, and long after feeding it wasn’t full of fish, but I saw enough. Turns out there are five more of these underwater aquarium across Japan, so I want to visit them all now!

There are six of these underwater aquarium in Japan

For the night I stayed at an old ryokan by the name of Orange hotel. I got a family room, furthest away from the entrance, and it turned out to include dinner, and breakfast. The building was showing signs of age, but the staff was friendly, and they had non-smoking rooms, which is important to me.

Day 12, 61km, 756m - Slow day, with a nice hill at the end

Day 12 was a quiet ride following the coast for most of the day. The original plan was to avoid all of the tunnels on the route, but my legs were getting heavy, so I decided against the longer detour I had originally planned. Luckily the traffic was slow, so cycling through the tunnels went smoothly. The weather was nice, but there was some wind, similar to the previous days.

On the way I passed a slide made out of rolls - I’ve never seen that before, so I had to try it! It didn’t look like it was frequently used, and the area around was growing back with plants. The roller slide was surprisingly fast, so I had to break with my feet to avoid getting too much speed. It was quite long too, and had a cool spiral at the end. The rolls weren’t the best for my butt, even though I had extra padding from the cycling shorts.

I love cycling these kinds of roads, they are so quiet, and adventurous

Arriving in Mishohirajo I first visited the road station to get my stamp. While I was there, I saw some interesting lemon umeshu that I hadn’t seen before. As I didn’t want to cycle the rest of the trip with a bottle of umeshu in my pack, and it was too big to drink in one night, I chose not to buy it. That was until I saw a Yamato office just around the corner! Yamato is a shipping company that operates through all of Japan, and they mostly deliver door-to-door. This meant I could use them to ship my bottle to my hotel in Hiroshima. So I went back, picked up two bottles, and rode to the shipping office. It was no problem shipping the bottles, and they even packed the package for me! So great service.

You see a lot of stone beaches when you follow the coast for 1000 km

Afterwards I rode to my Yamashiroya Ryokan (山代屋旅館) to take a bath, before I headed out to find somewhere to eat.

While wandering around, I found this small restaurant called Bar SAKEおざき. It was a small place with only two tables, and one of the tables was taken when I arrived. The owner and chef didn’t really speak English, but it turns out that one of the guests was an English teacher that saw this as a possibility to practice his English! So the teacher took charge and got me set up for the night! I ended up with two servings, first a wonderful homemade cheese pizza, and then a tasty spaghetti dish. For dessert I got a big glass of sake, way too much for me. I had a unforgettable evening, with great food, wine, and sake, plus I got to meet some locals!

When I got back to the ryokan that evening it was locked! I tried to knock on the door, walk around the building to see if there was an extra entrance, but to no avail. Luckily there was an izakaya still open just around the corner that I got some help from. After a little bit of miming they finally understood I was locked out, and they called the owner. He was luckily not asleep, so I got in after just a couple of minutes, and could finally go to bed.

Day 13, 58km, 897m - Re-planning and re-routing

I had originally planned to do some hiking after my cycle trip around Shikoku. The plan was to ride back to Imabari, and then hike Mount Ishizuchi (石鎚山), the tallest mountain in Shikoku, using the ropeway. Sadly I found out that the ropeway was closed for maintenance the days I wanted to hike, meaning that I had to choose between either hiking the whole mountain, or save it for later. With the shifting forecast, and my tired legs I opted for the latter, saving it for later.

This meant that I suddenly had two extra days to spend. I ended up splitting the next day’s distance into two shorter distances, with some added hills for fun.

Not sure what kind of trees these are, but they are everywhere

Day 13 was a short, but hilly day. The original course was set to follow the main road around the mountain, but instead I took the direct route over the mountain pass.

It was a perfect day for climbing the 580 meters to the top. The sun was shining, no wind in the mountains, and I think I met only two cars on the way up! On the top they were hard at work building a huge windmill, I have no idea how they manage to get the wings up with all those trees and switchbacks. There was also a white guy working at the top, saw him too late to ask what he was also doing at such a remote place.

The descent was also really nice, and I could coast most of the way back to sea level!

They served pancakes during the day, but I was too late for it

I arrived before the check-in time at Dear U (うわじまゲストハウス&カフェ) hostel in Uwajima. This gave me ample time to see the local castle. It was a small one, as only the three story keep remains, built at the end of 1500! The castle was on a top of a steep hill, giving me a great view of the city.

Uwajima castle is one of twelve Japanese castles to still have its historical keep (tenshu (天守)) still standing

For dinner I ate some great cheese nan, which is often one of my highlights when I visit Japan. At the hostel I met a woman from Tazmania, and a guy from Shanghai!

Day 14, 54km, 735m - The mammoth family of straw

It was getting harder to get out of bed, my legs were tired, and I wasn’t sleeping that well. Bad sleep has been a recurring theme for this trip. I’m not sure why, but there have been some hard beds at the accommodations I booked, and I’m a side sleeper.

It was another short route this day, to the city of Yawatahama. The weather was still pretty nice, and with the shorter route I was able to avoid a 1100m tunnel!

These kinds of shrines are all over the place in Japan

The day started with getting out of the city and heading into the hills. When I look back at the Google Street View I have very few recollections of the first small hill of the day, even though it looks wonderful to ride. I do remember the big empty park before the hill, and the Lawson after the hill.

The next challenge of the day took me up to the Hoketu Mountain pass Observation Deck (法華津峠展望台), which felt like an abandoned tourist spot. There had been a toilet, and something that looked like a bar there at some point, but that was seemingly ages ago. I could practice my kanji on the big sign spelling out: Ho 法 Ke 華 Tsu 津 Toge 峠.

I never get tired of these kinds of views

After cruising down the hill, and getting my stamp at Road side rest area Donburi Hall (道の駅 どんぶり館), I cycled over to the Ehime Prefecture Museum of History and Culture (愛媛県歴史文化博物館). This was a pretty big museum telling the story Ehime, where you could walk inside old buildings, trams, and look at how Ehime had evolved over time. Really interesting, they even had a section for the festival held throughout the year!

It’s always fascinating to see what people build, just for the fun of building

Last stop for the day was a family of mammoths made out of straw! To remember them I had been extra careful to mark them on my GCP, so when I was at the mark and still didn’t see them I was quite surprised and disappointed. There was a Lawson at my mark so I went in and grabbed some snacks, and thought that I should at least continue a little bit further since I had already gone so far out. And I’m really glad I did! Turns out my mark was wrong, and they were just hidden behind some houses from where I stopped! They were exactly what they sound like, and it was a fun experience. The family consisted of three mammoths, father, mother, and a baby. There were several families visiting at the same time as me, so I’m guessing it’s quite a known place.

On the last stretch to Yawatahama I spotted a mystical tree tunnel (市営王子の森公園 木のトンネル) next to a park. It was like taken out of a Studio Ghibli movie, and it was a bit magical walking through it!

There wasn’t much else to see or do in Yawatahama, but I had some great Sapporo style ramen!

Not much to do in Yawatahama, but the sunset was nice

Day 15, 76km, 722m - To the island “capital”, Matsuyama

When I got up this day I thought it would be overcast, and a long, heavy day. It turned out to be quite the opposite.

I had chosen to again avoid the tunnels, and go over the mountains, and it turned out that the mountain was a bit lower than I had anticipated. Which was really nice. It wasn’t really that steep either, so it was quite pleasant working my way up the hills, and looking at all the hill farms, with their cool monorails going all over the place. A lot of the monorails have been taken back by nature. Finally at the top of the hill I even managed to find a better way down, taking me further towards Matsuyama, instead of going straight down to the main road. It apparently wasn’t much used, as there was a lot of debris spread all over the road.

There was a lot of fallen leaves on this road

After finishing today’s hill, all that was left was 60km of nearly flat asphalt all the way to Matsuyama.

On my way I said hello to a couple from Canada doing the South to North trip, and it was their first bikepacking trip! Which was really cool.

Even though there was some traffic towards Matsuyama, this stretch was really nice

Later in the day I cycled past Shimonada Station (下灘駅), a famous train station looking over the bay. I was in the zone as I passed, so I totally forgot about it, and when I remembered it I didn’t feel like turning around, as the exit was a bit before the station. It also looked as though there were already a lot of people there taking pictures.

When I got closer to the city I found a more scenic route through the city following the river. The original plan was to follow the main road, but I was a bit tired of cars.

It was a nice route, and there were plenty of people out on picnics enjoying the sun, and the last bit of cherry blossoming.

Day 16 70km, 405m - Last day to Imabari

My final day on my journey around Shikoku, and to collect as many stamps as I could! The weather wasn’t looking the best, it started out overcast, and it was going to rain later in the day.

Yet again I managed to ride past my last stamp location, so again I had to backtrack about 5km. Interestingly the same distance as last time.

Should I try to travel back to get the last stamp?

My body was tired, but it was mostly flat, and not much of a wind. I felt ready to finish my trip, but at the same time melancholy that it would soon be over. The trip had been a part of me for two weeks, and a big part of me wanted to just continue!

I had decided to not ride back to Matsuyama, and instead take I took train. So with the extra time I decided to check out a castle-shaped observation deck (海山城跡 展望台). It was of course on top of a steep hill, so I had to dig deep to get up. The view wasn’t as nice as promised because the trees had grown too big, and blocked the best view towards islands I had ridden two weeks earlier.

Back around to where I started after Shimanami Kaido

To finish my circle I rode back up to Kurushima Strait Observatory (来島海峡展望館), to where I started it all after riding Shimanami Kaido. It was a bit strange being back at the same place as before, and it felt like I hadn’t been here for a really long time, even though it was just two weeks ago.

A lot of the castles had windows that made it look like a face

Afterwards I visited the Imabari castle, before I bought some snacks and caught the local train back to Matsuyama. I didn’t understand until after I was already on the local train, that the train leaving 20 minutes later, would arrive half an hour earlier in Matsuyama. It didn’t matter much though, I got to relax, people-watch a bit on the train, and eat my food. Even though eating on the train is frowned upon.

It looks like it’s trying to run away with my bike

My gear

Similarly to my trip last year, I went for a lightweight setup. The Shikoku setup was even lighter than Kyushu, as I didn’t need a sleeping bag or tent. This time I had a new seat post bag with a frame(!), and a new handle bar bag (called rando bag). Both of them handmade in Ukraine by the wonderful people of 7rbags.com.

These types of bike rack, where you hang the bike by the saddle was very common

I also had mounted a set of aero bars, to give me more comfort for the long days, and some different ride positions. Really happy with the aero bars!

On the aero bars I had mounted my (insurance company mandatory) simple bike lock, for easy non-disturbing access.

My Fara gravel bike, it’s still a blast to ride

Seat post bag

• Spare cycling kit in the bottom
• Light hiking shoes on top
• Cycling rain jacket
• Fleece
• One spare tube
• One pair of Black Diamond climbing pants (perfect for bikepacking, they are comfortable and look stylish)
• Change of clothes
  • Two pairs of wool boxers
  • Two pairs of wool socks
  • One pair of cotton bike socks
  • One Northern Playground grandfather shirt
  • One Northern Playground hooded shirt
• Rain pants attached to the outside
• Long leggings attached to the other side

Half Frame bag

I also had two 0.6l water bottles in my frame, plus a bottle for bike tools underneath, with a spare tube.

• Charging cables and adapter
• Headlight (needs to be changed for one that fit my helmet)
• First aid kit
• Tissue paper (never used, convenience store always gave me wet wipes)
• Spectacle case (I wear glasses)
• Nook ebookreader
• Snacks

Rando handle bar bag

• Windbreaker (usually on top)
• Passport
• Credit card
• Sleeping mask and earplugs for sleeping

Top tube pack

• Mobile phone
• Snacks

Cycling kit

• Pedaled wool jersey
• 7mesh cargo bib
• One pair of Pedaled wool bike socks
• Quoc Gran Tourer Black Gum bike shoes

The bike

• Fara Gravel Adventure 2020

Afterthoughts about my gear

I skipped the battery bank for this trip, as I was staying in hotels every night. Forgot to bring a wool neck, which would have been nice with all the wind.

I was able to pack my bike in the sun this year, an upgrade from the dark basement in Beppu