November 18, 2025
Day 77 — Sanyo-Onada to Shimonoseki
Welcome to today’s episode of “That Ride Sucked!”
We awoke to a bit of sun at our exclusive campsite at the Ejio Campground. We managed to get OK sleep after hearing what we think were wild pig screeches not long after dark. Though we did have a good long presleep period of monitoring every random noise for threats from wild animals. Anyway, we packed up in a hurry yet again in an effort to avoid a potentially even more uncomfortable encounter — a man in a white truck wondering who let us camp here.
The goal for the day was Shimonoseki, where we would catch the ferry to Busan for our visa run. The ferry didn’t leave until 7, (though check in started at 3 and closed at 6) and there was only 40 km or so to cover, so we felt pretty confident in getting there with plenty of time.
We managed to avoid any white truck worker encounters, though as we left the sun went behind a cloud and the wind picked up, and it became clear that it was actually pretty cold out! We donned the extent of our cool weather gear — sweaters, jackets, fingered gloves, leggings and pushed out into a stiff cold headwind.
Once past the side road into the park, we were on big interurban stroads. Multi lane, fast moving, busy, generally unpleasant. Worse, through most of the morning, the side path was in pretty terrible condition. As we had plenty of time and weren’t in the mood to cope with traffic, we pretty much stuck to the side paths, and fought our way along bumpy, narrow and weed strewn sidewalks.
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As we got closer to Shimonoseki, there was a stretch where the wind briefly shifted out of our faces, and the road widened a bit, and we were able to press a bit and get a bit of distance done through the endless big box stores. Then we got into Shimonoseki itself, and the wind returned, the road narrowed and the side path went back to being crappy.
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We located the ferry terminal, still with a couple hours before we could check in. So we changed into street clothes, locked up the bikes, and headed to a nearby mall to kill some time and get some food. A big Indian curry lunch set things to rights and put us in the frame of mind to face a sea voyage.
Once back at the terminal, it was a comedy of misunderstandings as to what we were supposed to do with the bikes. We were initially told to take them to the oversize baggage area — this seemed to imply a fee by weight and their ending up in a container. This didn’t seem right, so we asked again with more specific information. We were told to board with the bikes. So we went down to board with the motorcycles, which was what we did on every other ferry we’ve been on. The 90 year old security guard in charge thought we were loopy and sent us back upstairs. Eventually we ended up in the offices, where it was confirmed we walk them on as passengers, and there was space for them. Ah.
The rest of the time was spent watching Koreans cram boxes of cup noodle into wheelie luggage — presumably part of very small stakes import/export endeavours.
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Boarding went smoothly enough, there was space for the bikes, we found our cabin, then watched Shomonoseki disappear into the dark. A quick meal as the sole patrons of the on board cafeteria, then it was off to bed to be rocked to a somewhat queasy sleep by the waves lashing the ferry.
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Today's ride: 41 km (25 miles)
Total: 3,989 km (2,477 miles)
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