The 197 towards yasuhara is a nice road winding up the hill with the river on the left then drops down into a remarkably clean well ordered town, looks like there is some money.
The houses are European in style and none of the clutter such as telegraph poles and the inevitable rooftop spaghetti that has destroyed Japanese towns.
Going full retard and turning right, along the 440 we follow the Yasuhara river, until we get to our favorite pastime, tunnels. This one is new with a reasonable foot path on the right hand side, and its downhill! so one cant complain.!
Nothing to report , I stopped at a seven eleven for a snack. Then following the 440 which changes to the 33 and back to the 440 in as many meters !
Luckily we didnt need google maps !
Then down a long long down hill and I do mean long into Tobe! lovely. beautiful views over the town but that wind , a little chilly it could be said.
There is nothing I can say about Matsuyama. Tobe has some history behind it I think. It was a samuri clan who opposed the boys in Tokyo and is something to do with ryomas escape route. Im not sure. Matsuyama is just another Japanese town , with a big road going to the centre,
It does have a castle. Insert 3kg of pure excitement, not.
You can probably guess by now I have no to very little interest in “old buildings” Let me quantify this. “Old buildings” for the sake of looking at old building because this is “history “ is boring. But near me, Koganei has an architectural museum. In this park there is a collection of typical Japanese buildings and from an engineering point of view, fascinating. Old castles and temples because its history and you are under some obligation to “do it “ , not happening.
After the long decent into Tobe the road levels out and I started to pedal, well I was pedalling and things were going round but forward motions were eluding me.
Stop at a 7/11. Wheel off , sprag clutch not catching inside the hub , how to fix it? I know hit it , hit it untill its fixed; that works for machinery and bicycles.
Little did I know, this would come back to haunt me with 9 km to my house at 5 in the morning!
My mate in New Zealand reckons he is an important fella and I never really thought he was but I was wrong , old Horie has a whole town named after him.
I stayed the night in Horie’s place on a what might be called a beach behind a sea wall.
Insert a rant on plastic.
How do you start ? How can you point out the garbage on the beaches. Its almost like the Japanese are a related to the mythical Vogons. The buildings, cars, beaches anything that looks like “nature” has to be tamed , concreteded over and garbage spread around. Now I know that the average person is not like this and the garbage is mostly not put there on purpose, sometimes you see it. The smoking person stubbing out the cigarette and leaving the butts on the ground but by enlarge the garbage is blown into the sea and onto the beach,.
He is the problem, plastic. The beaches are disgusting, lakes , rivers anywhere there is a high concentration of Japanese people, its the local residents, they by a lack of thought have destroyed their environment. The funny thing is; IMHO surrounded by a lack of beauty and nature destroyed by garbage, the Japanese seek beauty, the vacation to New zealand beacause its “nature”!
Well Japan could be beautiful IF the locals cleaned the fking place up!
Now how the pollution spreads isnt by malice , its by accident. You buy a bento, take the lid of and while you are eating the wind blows the lid away. You try to find it but cant. The lid blows into the sea and up onto the beaches.
We and especially the Japanese MUST STOP USING PLASTIC. STOP IT. The buck stops basically with the manufacturers, and they wont do anything unless their bottom line is hurt. Stop buying products with plastic wrapping , print out a standard letter and spam the fkers.
Rant over.
One good thing about horie’s place is there was a supermarket within a few min walk,
Dinner was french bread , a foot long “sub”....
The next day I spent half hour picking up the trash, Then a second cup of coffee and everything packed away on the road by 9, so that was good.
Leaving Hories place and following the road to Imbari. the weather was nice and the road was basically ok. Following the route 11 towards Nihamathe footpath was wide enough but the 11 is a main route so trucks and cars and noise nothing to report.When the road started to follow the ocean things started to improve. Stumbling upon a cycle way I stopped to take a photo of these enormous ships, I have no idea what these things ship; cars, oil or cocaine? they are big!.
Battling a dying phone, I managed to head towards imbari township where I stopped picked up a bento from the supermarket and put the washing though a coin laundry, I maybe on the road but there is no excuse to look homeless.
Clean and fed I headed of towards the bridge. Surely a 70km bridge should be easy to find !
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