November 7, 2025
Day 66 — Irinomatsubara Camping Ground to Ryuga Beach Campsite
Marilee here.
Oh, it was so hard to leave our perfect beach campsite! Tom was up at dawn, as always, and even I got up earlier than usual so that we’d have lots of time for morning coffee while contemplating surf and sunshine, beachcombing for seashells, wading, etc etc. But soon enough it was time to pack up and head down the road.
And by road I mean a seaside bike path under the pine trees, winding through the sand dunes. It was a beautiful, peaceful start to the day. Even after the beach trail ended and we joined the road it remained quiet, relatively flat and virtually car-free for several kilometers.
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We spent much of the morning zig-zagging through farmland on dike-top paths. Since the rice paddies are laced with canals, every so often our path would take a sharp turn, following the edge of a canal until we crossed a bridge and followed the canal up the opposite side. It was quiet and sunshiny and flat, but not a terribly efficient way of getting anywhere.
Then we encountered a construction project that had the dike road closed, forcing us down onto a lower path paved with concrete blocks with a pattern of raised nubs that seemed purposely designed to torture cyclists. Twenty jolting minutes of pushing the bikes over those bumps ensued before we could rejoin the dike path. Then that too gave out and Komoot played one of its funny jokes on us, sending us down a little road that got smaller and smaller, muddier and muddier, until poof! It disappeared entirely.
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Well, we left the rice paddies behind and got on the highway, which took us up, up, up into the hills (as roads here like to do). We were heading for another beach campground, this one on a southern peninsula, but there was an up and over to get there. We stopped at the last town before our destination to stock up on food, then swooped up and down on minor roads for the last 15km until we encountered the campground sign. Which pointed us down, down, down a steep switchbacking road to the seaside campsite in an idyllic sheltered little bay… filled with fish farms. I’d been looking forward to a swim, but the sight of the fish farms changed my mind.
The campground was actually a series of decks, making clever use of the very non-level terrain. And we were again the only campers. However, we arrived while the camp manager was still on duty, so no free camping for us tonight. However, there were hot showers and many, many outlets. We got cleaned up and all our devices got charged, ready to meet the challenges of the day ahead.
Today's ride: 66 km (41 miles)
Total: 3,343 km (2,076 miles)
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