The Bridges of Hiroshima Prefecture

Up early this morning to pack up, assemble the bikes, hope everything works and hit the road. After much sweating, swearing and squashing we managed to get our bikes together, pack everything we brought, somehow, into our trailers and get out and on our way before 7:30. We were starting the trip by taking a ferry across a very narrow inlet to the first island of the day, Mukaishima. Honestly, we could have swam across the inlet, it was so narrow, but not with the bikes.

Reaching the other side, we started our trip on the Shimanami Kaido, a toll road that passes over six islands in a chain of small islands between the main island of Honshu and our destination, Shikoku. This chain of small islands is home mostly to fishermen and farmers, but also of some great scenery. Sub-tropic beaches along the Seto Inland Sea and mountains make for some pretty amazing vistas, most of which we didn't take pictures of, since se were busy biking :) But we did get some pictures of the bridges, which were pretty impressive themselves, and give a taste of the scenery.

Connecting the six islands of Mukaishima, Innoshima, Ikuchijima, Omishima, Hakatajimain and Oshima are five bridges, including the Kurushima-Kaikyo bridge (which is structurally three bridges, but it's all one long bridge path) that is the first three consecutive suspension bridge system in the world. It is over a mile long (4015m) and, if you are traveling to Imabari, is also mostly uphill. Just sayin'. Also  the Tatara bridge, one of the longest cable-stay bridges in the world (1480m) and has the border of Ehime and Hiroshima prefectures in the middle of the bridge. All the bridges were toll bridges and had separate lanes for bicycle, moped and foot traffic. The tolls were a very cheap 500¥ per bike for the entire trip. 

The first bridge, Innoshima, had a whole separate section UNDERNEATH the rest of the traffic for bikes and foot traffic!

A view of the Tatara bridge while approaching. Each bridge had an "on ramp" for the bikes that was about 1km long and all a spiraling uphill climb.

Hakata-Oshima Bridge. Note the sand beach on the sea. Most of Japan's coast to the Pacific is more rocky and severe.

Omishima Bridge. The smallest of the five.

We did take a detour while on Innoshima to check out the Pirate Castle (Suigun castle), which was the home base of the Murakami Pirates from the 14th to the 17th centuries. It boasted an active Buddhist temple and in-use Buddhist cemetery right next to it, and was pretty cool. When approaching one of the buildings, we heard a prayer service (think Buddhist chant) going on.

A view of the castle and outer building from the cemetery adjacent to it.

"Walk Of the Dead". A long path around the cemetery. Not sure what it signifies.

The rest of the day was spent pedaling, with occasional stops for pictures, all the way to Imabari, which was 73km from our starting point. This doesn't sound bad to cyclists, but add jet lag, constant up and down (often over 700m) and a 50# trailer draggin behind you, it was a pretty grueling first day out.

It reads "Beware of Animals". I didn't know we had wild boar in this area.

Palm trees and the ocean. Sumi approves.

Some more manhole covers.

I love the shopping streets in Japan and Asia in general.

The entire Kaido has great signs and markers. We were quite spoiled.

After a 9.5 hour day pedaling away in the sun, we arrived at Imabari, a small city on the north end of Shikoku. We headed to the train station and checked in with the Information desk. The pleasant lady informed us there was just a big cycling event that had occurred this weekend (we had seen lots of cyclists and knew something was going on, but not what) and, as a result, all the cheap hotels were booked. She did find us a not cheap hotel that is amazing. The room is so big, we were able to fit everything inside (including our bikes AND trailers) and not be cramped. Luxurious by Japanese standards. So, a good night's sleep here and we'll be off for Matsuyama tomorrow, if we can move enough to get out of bed, that is :)

P.S. No food pics today. We ate pretty much road food (granola bars, bread, etc) and even had konbini dinner (yogurt, cabbage salad in a bag, bread, ham and egg sandwiches). We'll have a real meal tomorrow night in Matsuyama.