November 17, 2025
Day 76 — Kudamatsu to Sanyo-Onada
Marilee here.
On a long trip like this, not every day of riding is going to be a memorable one. And then there’s the occasional day that you’d actually prefer to forget. Today falls into that category.
Cons: long distance to cover, mostly through an industrial hinterland between cities, fairly substantial elevation gain, busy highways, frequent long irritating stops at traffic lights, lots of trucks, highway shoulders that appear and disappear unpredictably, tunnels with no sidewalks or shoulders… I could go on, but you get the picture.
Pros: ummmm, it was sunny.
OK, there were more pros than that. It wasn't ideal riding by any stretch of the imagination, but there were certainly bright spots to the day. I’ll try to focus on those.
Bright spot #1: The Bakery.
We pass little bakeries fairly often but somehow it’s almost never at a point when it would make sense to take a break. Today I decided that didn’t matter. We’d only been riding for a little over half an hour when we happened across a bakery on a busy stretch of road under an elevated railway line. It was an unlikely location but the treats in the window looked tempting, so I called for second breakfast and we went in and had a civilized sit down with lattes and croissants and apple turnovers. All excellent, and we got to listen to Elvis sing Christmas songs while we ate.
Every conbini is full of baked goods but they’re factory produced and wrapped in plastic— good for a sugar and calorie boost but not exactly fine pastry. This was a nice change. And we bought big sandwiches for later.
Bright Spot #2: The Considerate Truck Driver
About mid-day we came to an area where a new multi-lane divided highway was being built. One side was nearly completed, the other side was an open construction site, so for the time being traffic in both directions was squeezed into the nearly-finished side. There was no shoulder (the finished highway will have lovely bike lanes, it looked like, but they were currently cordoned off), so we were sharing the road with the traffic.
At first we were grinding uphill, hugging the side of the road as best we could. Then we reached the crest of the hill and a beautiful view opened up — glittering ocean in a wide bay bordered by high green hills, the roofs of the town clustered directly beneath us, and leading down to it, a fresh smooth black road. We took off, and were soon swooping around curves.
A few minutes in, I realized no cars were passing us (which was lucky, because we were taking up most of the lane). A glance over my shoulder revealed that a big semi-trailer was behind me, keeping a good distance back and driving slow to give us the space to get down the hill safely. When we stopped at the first light down at the bottom, the truck pulled up next to to us and we waved and bowed to thank the driver for his patience and consideration. He gave us a thumbs up as he drove away, and we waited at the light while the long lineup of traffic that had collected behind him during our descent went by.
It’s easy to feel resentful and threatened by the traffic, especially the big trucks, so this was a really nice moment of connection.
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Bright Spot #3: A Great Campsite
We ended the day by leaving the highway to cruise through some calmer secondary roads en route to our destination for the day, a campground in a regional park outside the small town of Sanyo-onada. The park was quite lovely, with a network of paved walking paths around a series of small lakes. The campground was on a terraced hillside overlooking a lake, and — can you guess? — yes, empty! Like so many of the campgrounds we’ve been to in the last few weeks, this one was deserted except for us. We set up our tent and then headed off through the park in search of an onsen that google maps told us was nearby.
The onsen was inside a large resort hotel at the edge of the park, which like the campground seemed deserted. It was so empty it took us some time to rouse a staff member to sell us tickets to the onsen, and then she had to lead us to it, up stairs, along unlit corridors, down stairs, around corners, up more stairs. It was a bit Overlook Hotel in its empty rambliness, but we tried not to get spooked. The onsen was small, but I had the ladies’ side all to myself, as did Tom on the mens’ side.
When we were clean and relaxed, we walked back to the campground along the dark paths with the stars beginning to come out, to make dinner.
Although I said this was a bright spot, our camping experience was a bit mixed — early on in the night we were jolted awake by an animal screaming nearby. Three long scream-squeals. We lay there, listening for what might come next. After a few minutes, there were another three scream-squeals, but from much farther away. I really hoped that this was the same animal, moving away from us, and not the first squealer saying “Come over here, there’s a tent full of juicy humans” and the second squealer replying “Thanks, be right there”.
Sleep was a little hard to come by after that, but there were no other disturbing noises in the night, so I guess it was just one animal and not the party invitation that my middle of the night paranoia suggested. Wild boars? We’ve been seeing warning signs about wild boars for several weeks, so it could be. Thankfully, we’ll never know for sure.
Today's ride: 83 km (52 miles)
Total: 3,948 km (2,452 miles)
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