Beside Lake Towado briefly before a stop at the new roadside station.

With good facilities and ample parking, overnight stays are popular and well catered for – both in campers, but also kei cars.

A prolonged climb took us over the crater rim – lovely forest, good views, impressive roads (and viaducts) and some waterfalls too. Still pleasantly cool in the morning.

Choosing the shorter, scenic route doubled our climbing for the morning to over 400 m – but did give us a great descent to Kosaka – a town built on extensive copper and silver mining and processing. The industry is not quite as large as it once was, but metal processing still plays a part. There was an area of restored European buildings, from the town’s heyday, that we looked around.

Playhouse, with rotating stage.

(Rachel’s photo.)

Hazardous staircase for the tall; even I had to watch I didn’t crack my head on the underside.

Late morning spent riding the twenty kilometres to Kazuno up the valley floor, successfully avoiding the main road. Still very much enjoying the contrast between the bright rice fields of the flats and the dark forest covering the hills behind.

With a bit of topiary in the mix too.

And the odd factory.

Chickens apparently a theme around these parts.

(Rachel’s photo.)

(Rachel’s photo.)

In town we found a long, once-bright, covered shopping street while we hunted for lunch.

Somehow our searching online gave us a restaurant that was in a flash hotel; being hungry cyclists, we made sure we got our money’s worth. Yum!

A bit more of the same early afternoon as the valley gradually narrowed.

More poultry!

A rubbish bin in the wild!!

Leaving the rice fields behind, into the forest now – on some increasingly marginal roads that mostly connected.

A bit overdue, we detoured to bathe at a small onsen built right beside a river that just screamed flash flood risk.

Cue more big concrete walls.

A very pleasant and quiet onsen over, we tried our luck continuing up the valley on the steep side road. Unfortunately that meant I was soon covered in sweat again. Oh well, cleanliness was nice while it lasted.

The road started to show signs that it might not be maintained.

Frustratingly, as we were only a kilometre from rejoining the main road, we could go no further with our loaded bikes.

Dropping a hundred metres, and then regaining those metres, had us riding through a sparse, spread-out and deserted for the season mountain village. But we did find the local konbini not quite closed – time for an ice cream sandwich, which were becoming a favourite.

As drizzle closed in, we were pleased to find that our wild camping option just up the road (at a small park marking the fortieth parallel north) was adequate – as the campground we had planned to stay at was closed due to bear sightings. Amusingly, we found the young Belgian cyclist we’d met the previous day had found the same place to camp.

A slightly later departure after trying in the light of day to repair/bodge Rachel’s tent pole joiner that had broken overnight. (It limped on for the next couple of weeks until she was able to pick up the replacement that her sister had sent from the UK to her brother near Tokyo.) An unusually cool morning was welcome as we had a nice forested climb to warm us up for half an hour. Over the high point, we soon joined a larger road down to Oirase – where we hoped there were some resupply options. Pleasingly, we soon came across crews upgrading the road – which continued to interest me with differences from home.

The road became so smooth, for a glorious long descent through fairly open beech forest. Absolutely blissful riding, this was some of what I’d been hoping for/expecting in touring Japan.

At Tsutunuma we found a small hotel and onsen complex – situated near a series of volcanic ponds in more beautiful beech and chestnut forest. Unfortunately we didn’t find any food, but there was of course a drink vending machine. A calpis, no doubt, helped a nice forest walk around the ponds – which were bemusingly translated as swamps. Whatever they were, clear and still in the forest they were for a backdrop to a tranquil stroll.

We didn’t find much at Oirase town itself, so turned up the Oirase gorge towards Lake Tokado. The road was put in for tourism purposes, as there are plenty of picturesque water falls, cliffs and rocks in the beautiful forest. It wasn’t long before we found a good cafe, with views of a small water bottling plant, next to the information centre with a remarkably good moss display.

An idea of how many waterfalls there were to see.

While quite a busy road, in traffic volume – with plenty of buses, being in Japan it was all rather sedate and pleasant riding. Being on bikes made it easy to pause or stop to look at various things and wander a bit. Cue, a lot of waterfalls…

(Rachel’s photo.)

(also Rachel’s photo)

Eventually we popped out at Lake Towada, fifteen kilometres took us a languid three hours, to find another fading tourist town (abandoned large hotels again etc.) – but still with some signs of life and new development. On the edge of the main town, a short walk to the ornate Towada shrine before returning lakeside.

Continuing around the lake a short distance, we found a large campground with absolutely no one there – but the water was still turned on, so that was enough to keep us there for the night. We even managed a rare camp fire, it helping to distract from the meagre meal we’d scraped together from the nearby new roadside station – possibly the only disappointing meal we had in Japan. Not bad for three months touring, and didn’t dampen the beautiful day’s riding we’d had.

Up and away early from our stealth camp, tracking parallel to Matsu Bay mostly managing quiet secondary roads. After an hour, slight hills as we turned inland to the centre of the peninsula.

Climbing through tranquil forest.

Under the large transmission corridor through farmland.

Dropping to Lake Okagawa, we followed the shore for an hour and a half with a light tailwind, little traffic and plenty of birds and boats to look at – and the occasional self-defence (fighter) jet screaming overhead from a nearby base.

Didn’t work out what all these boats are used to fish for.

Lake looked a little low.

Looking across the southwest end of the lake and the hills towards which we were heading.

With the earlier start, a long lunch layover was enjoyed – also a chance for Rachel to shed some of her load by posting excess to her brother.

The early part of a pleasantly warm afternoon was spent riding through peaceful, productive cropping land very gradually climbing; onions and diakon being crops of note in these parts.

As the gradient increased, the fields began to be replaced with forest; that and the clear creek running down the valley helped also to keep the temperature down.

Maybe one day I’ll have a wood stack like that…

About the time we would normally be looking for ice cream, we found a store stuck about forty years ago – it did at least have ice cream.

There were still a few rice fields amongst the trees.

The first we’d seen of this method of drying rice.

Only in the last ten kilometres of the day, above 500 m, did the road steepen, put a hairpin or two in and bid farewell to the farming. Enjoyable riding, rather deserted up there too.

Having crossed the main road, we found a short walk to the source of the creek – wonderfully cool and clear spring water.

The few facilities up here were entirely deserted, summer holiday season having ended two weeks earlier. Having cooked on the side of a large parking lot, battling mosquitoes, we slept in the large clean toilet block – but still had to put our tent inners up to avoid the bugs.

Parking lot view – a rather spread out wind farm.