September 28, 2025
Day 26 — Lake Towada to Minshuku Enogubaku
Well, after a “day off” it was time to get back to pushing south, and it was a lovely day for a bike ride. We had our hostel breakfast of instant coffee, Japanese brand Frosted Flakes, one (1) hard boiled egg and white toast, and set to packing up.
Because Lake Towada is in a volcanic crater, there was no way out but up before you get to go down. So thankfully we had trained on the hills yesterday and were in awesome shape now.
A quick but steep 250 m climb, and we reached a lookout over the lake festooned with Chinese bus tourists all madly taking pictures of each other. Once they cleared out we enjoyed the sweeping views of the lake.
Then came the long juddery ride down, through a shady forested road. Again, another lovely empty road. Once at the bottom we commented to each other that the roads we’ve been riding have to a crazy degree been like this so far. Through beautiful countryside, well maintained, and close to empty. Soon we’ll have to make progress through more populated areas, so maybe this is the heyday, but it’s been great riding.
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The next bit of the ride was a nice cruise through more open country, then along through a small town. Our destination was the Oyu Stone Circles, a neolithic site from the Jomon period 4-5000 years ago.
The site itself was initially a bit confusing. So far it seems that the Japanese prioritize you hitting the museum portion first, and ensuring you are ushered into the video experience before you get to actually experience the site. The museum was excellent, though, again with many amazing, and sometimes intact, artifacts thousands of years old.
We did manage to escape the education and find the site. On the surface, it consisted of a one central large ring of accumulated stones, with a number of other, smaller, rings and sites. From our education at the museum, we had learned that there were a staggering number of burial pits and other sites where offerings were made near the circles, as well as sites from the nearby inhabited areas. We had also learned that the stones themselves had been gathered from a riverbed several kilometres away.
Our destination for the evening was a minshuku (guesthouse) partway up towards a high pass near Mt Hachimantai. Unfortunately this meant a second climb as the end of the day. Our itinerary was set by the availability of accommodation — the way south was a bit of a puzzle for us, as it was hard to come up with campsites or reasonably priced accommodation within a reasonable day’s ride. The Minshuku Enogubako was available, in our price range, and offered a route to Lake Tazawa. It did however require a bit of effort to get to, and a mental commitment to another up and over a mountain pass.
The ride through the valley before the turnoff to the route past Mt Hachimantai was nice, but I kept wondering when we were going to turn and get to the hills. I was wondering if we’d made a mistake — we were within 10 km of the guesthouse, but still 300m below where we should be. Well, there was no mistake. With about 6 km left the road veered up sharply and we finished the day with a low gear sweat bath.
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We got to the guesthouse bathed in sweat and not quite coherent, which always adds to the checkin confusion. The guesthouse itself was essentially the family’s home, with a guest room section and a dining area, as well as a miniature onsen. It was run by an older couple — the woman definitely seemed well past the enthusiasm of running a guesthouse, but the old man cooking dinner was very energetic. It definitely had a shopworn / lived in feel to it, which accounted for a lot of the mixed reviews we found for it. It was fine, but assuredly not fancy, but maybe offered a genuine Japanese experience. Other residents seemed to be road crew workers who showed up en masse at days end. Dinner was at 6, and served in our Japanese style room, and cost the outrageous sum of ¥500 each.
Today's ride: 63 km (39 miles)
Total: 1,276 km (792 miles)
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