Day Five - Kagoshima To MiyazakiThe English translation is someone brief compared to the Japanese above it. Ironically I didn't sleep all that well.
Eventually I got up at 01:30 and went for a walk to the lobby. The reception was closed off. This was actually what greeted me when I arrived at 14:30 the previous day. A lot of business hotels in Japan do this. Reception opens at 15:00 until about midnight. You can't check in outside those hours.
Then I went to the public bath on the ground floor. No one was around so I went back and got my camera. Women got to use it it from 16:00-20:00 and men from 20:00 until morning. The curtin on the entrance denotes this as well. When it's red it's women's time, blue is men's time.
A lot of places in Japan will deny you entry if you have tattoos. Traditionally tattoos were associated with Yakuza and crime syndicates.
The actual bath. I actually miss having a bath where the water stays hot. Typically public bath house baths are kept at 42°C. Sit in them long enough and you hop out like the Polish flag. Red on the bottom, white on top.
Five photos down and I haven't even left the hotel. I was well and truly bored so I departed in the dark. The national emblems don't play hopscotch on the road here so it was quite safe - provided you stay away from the drains. I've got a photo of said drains from the last day. I refuelled once in every prefecture except Saga. Actually I overnighted in every prefecture except Saga. Anyway, I refuelled at this mobil in Minamisatsuma. The irony of me being that prick parked in a bus stop.
It's been ten years now since the Fukushima nuclear power plant explosion. My previous return to Japan was in 2012 a year after that. Between 2012 and 2016 I noticed that solar farms and wind farms have popped up all over the place. These were in Makurazaki. Japan has an abundance of thermal springs that could generate electricity but I think they went nuclear because they are a "high tech" country and hot water simply wasn't high tech enough for them.
This helicopter was in Makurazaki too. I have no idea why it has a hole in the window.
Kaimondake is often referred to the Mount Fuji of Kyūshū. Shape wise I can see it, but there actually is a Mount Fuji in Nagasaki. Actually there are a few Mount Fujis dotted around the country. I played a photo of this one in the where is this thread.
I arrived at the fifth and final ferry for this trip with about an hour and forty minutes to kill before departure. This would be my downfall as having so much time I had a look at everything in the area which included a map showing a forest road as an alternative to the highway I planned to take later in the day, so I opted to do that. That decision would make this the longest day I had on road on this trip.
This bus stop had me scratching my head. The times and route description for the top was for monday, wednesday and friday. The times and route description below were for tuesday, thursday and saturday. The times and route description for both were identical so I couldn't see why they were listed separately. Upon my return I wrote an email to the Ibusuki City Council to ask why. Apparently it's a loop service that goes in alternate directions every other day and they separated it so people didn't get confused. If you ask me having identical times and identical route description is more confusing. I think they imported their logic from Adelaide metro.
Another norpos I had a chat with the owner of. They were riding two up from Tōkyō for a week.
Finally my ship came in.
On the other side of Kagoshima bay I was heading for Kyūshū's most southern point, Cape Sata. I stopped at this co-op to buy lunch and sat in the car park and ate it. Here a tunnel was under construction. I'd passed the other side of it moments earlier. Length wise it was about that of the Heysen tunnels in Adelaide and is probably complete now.
One more look at Kaimondake, this time from the other side of the bay.
I didn't expect to see this. Two kilometre's short of the Cape Sata memorial the road was closed for construction. There was a shuttle bus to take people there but the security guard couldn't tell me when it would arrive, the line for it was long and it was quite hot so I said sod it and left. I had a similar experience for Mount Observation in Wilsons Promontory on my Tassie trip 0f 2019.
I'd already ridden under this once but now I was heading north again.
From here I'd take the forest road I noticed existed when waiting for the ferry. It started off good when I had scenes like this. I like these step ladder rice fields you see dotted all over the country.
The road turn this cabernet after this. Sadly there were no road closure signs at this end and I only got through because I was on two wheels after finding rocks and trees littered all over the road due to inclement weather they had a couple of days earlier. I can't actually find those photos but here's some I posted in instagram. I've got better ones somewhere.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CC2sINkpBYR/A brief respite from the debris I came to this fork in the road. Someone had kindly written place names to advise which one went where but as I didn't know where either of these places were it didn't help. I opened google maps to find there was no mobile reception here. I didn't think any part of Japan would have no mobile coverage except maybe for Okinotorishima so now it was a 50/50 gamble. The road to the right could lead to the coast and be a dead end, the road to the left could go into the mountains and be a dead end, but I knew the national highway I had intially planned to take was on my left so that's the option I took.
Fortunately it turned out to be the correct one. I lost four hours on that road, found a no through road sign on the other end and gopro footage confirmed there wasn't one at the end I went in. Nevertheless I was glad to see a national highway but no longer in the mood for photos. I took this one at the Miyazaki border. It was dark by the time arrived at my accommodation.