Day 75 — Hiroshima to Kudamatsu - Tom and Marilee Retire to the Road

November 16, 2025

Day 75 — Hiroshima to Kudamatsu

The next few days were all about getting to Shimonoseki, where we would catch an overnight ferry to Busan and then shortly return to Japan on the same ferry. The sole reason for this brief international sojourn was simply to reenter Japan and get our visas, which expire long before we get to Okinawa, renewed. We’ll see if it works.

In any event, we weren’t expecting much from the rides over the next few days, and frankly the rides barely met those modest expectations. But, you know, it can’t all be ancient temples and quaint villages. Part of the deal with travelling this way is getting to see the in between bits and what places are actually like.

Hiroshima is a large industrial city which bleeds into a somewhat smaller industrial city next to it, which in turn bleeds into another smaller industrial city adjacent to that. And so on. The coast here is all large port facilities, refineries, warehouses, and low density urban areas supporting these types of industries. Lots of busy suburban roads with chain stores, outdoor malls, car dealerships, etc. Not dissimilar from car oriented development anywhere.

We plugged the escape from Hiroshima into Komoot. Destination: Kudumatsu, a place we’d never heard of, but which was 80 odd kilometres in the right direction, and which had as its sole attraction a business hotel priced at the hilariously attractive rate of $39. Sounds like the place for us.

Komoot did the usual and led us down alleys and backstreets and then onto the highway that ran along these coastal cities. The winding escape from a city is actually kinda fun, as you are waking up and warming up anyway, and as Marilee wrote about in an earlier post, you do get to see some interesting bits you would otherwise never get to. And on the ride through Hiroshima, we did stumble upon a Shinto procession getting organized in a small backstreet, a nice bonus bit of luck.

From there it was a long slog along busy roads through factories and warehouses, though Komoot did jiggyjog us along side roads here and there.

A Komoot side road bonus, somebody’s seasonal decoration

We did get turned around a bit — the Garmin was acting up and struggled to locate the route at times, which was frustrating, though maybe showed that we were over relying on it and not just using it as a tool to supplement our own way finding. Though most riding was on busy and narrow roads, with a few very narrow tunnels, it did lead us to a nice, but hilly backroad, which was reminiscent of the types of roads we were used to elsewhere in Honshu: narrow, deserted, steep, and pretty.

We had an interim destination planned: the Kintaikyo Bridge, near Iwakuni. This wooden bridge is famous for its unique arched design. It was built in 1673, but destroyed by a typhoon in 1950, then rebuilt.

Though this was a nice side trip and interlude, we were a little alarmed when we checked in on how much distance was left. Though we had made good steady progress, somehow there was more than 50 km left well after 1 pm. Missed turns must have resulted in added distance. We put our heads down and worked away, and got ourselves back in a decent spot to get to our destination before sunset.

Komooted again. A quick little up and over turned into a track which turned into a very steep dirt path. It was only a few km, but cost us time and effort at the wrong time

Emerging from the Komoot shortcut back into civilization

Nice country place. Wonder if they were consulted on the placement of the express highway?

Quick break for chocolate almonds for the last push into Kudumatsu

We got to Kudumatsu as the sun was starting to set. We had reduced our mileage somehow, so the crisis of an overlong day was averted, though we were still pretty tired.

Kudumatsu isn’t anywhere someone would go on holiday, though there was a calm everdayness to it, as well as a busy train station. The cheapo hotel was fine, though appropriately priced as its best days were long ago. Fine for a night. On the plus side, we did end up at a lively izakaya for dinner that evening, where we sat at the counter watching our portly chef make us sushi and grilled mackerel while the locals came out for Sunday beers and snack food.

Today's ride: 86 km (53 miles)
Total: 3,865 km (2,400 miles)

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