Day 13 Pix: Miyazaki City - Cape Sata, 186 km (Part 2)

After the left-hand turn, there was water to our right, for the first time in a long time. We were finally on the home stretch of C2C! Even though we saw all those mountains ahead of us, we thought we were going to be riding around them, not up them. Too bad for us, we were wrong.

Initially, however, we didn't have to do any climbing. Here we are, thirty minutes later, at 2:42 p.m., still hugging the coastline. In the far right of the picture, you can see some land jutting out. At that point, we were so close to the end that we were getting incredibly anxious to finally see the finish line. Every time we went around a bend, we wondered when the road would finally end. Somewhere around here, Jody and I made our very last pit stop at a convenience store. When I asked the clerk how far we had to go, I was convinced he'd reply, "It's only about 10K." Instead, he told me it was about one hour by car. "One hour!? By car!? Are you serious!?" "Yes, for sure." Ugh. That meant at least two more hours of riding. All day long, I kept trying to estimate when we would make it to the cape. I was sure we'd be at there by about 3:30 p.m. at the very latest, but my calculations were obviously off. Now it looked more like a 4:30 arrival time.

When the sun decided to poke her nose out from behind the clouds with about an hour of pedaling to go, Jody decided to pull over to put some sunscreen on. Can you detect a bit of frustration on his part? (That's a rarity, indeed!) And no, he's not (mildly) upset because of the sun, but rather because the ride was, as I already mentioned, seemingly taking forever to end. Also, you probably can't tell, but just about here is where the road started to go from flat to hilly to hillier. In a rather unexpected and cruel twist of fate, we were really going to have to earn the last part of the 2600 km ride from Cape Soya to Cape Sata.

Just after we hit the road again, my buddy Guy and his wife Kumiko drove by. (The plan was for them to pick us up at the cape, so that was working out well.) Seeing familiar faces once again put smiles on both of our faces. It was also awesome to have someone taking pictures (and videos) of us riding. The ride wasn't over, but in a sense we now felt we were on our victory lap.

We were more than happy to show off a bit for the cameras. Jody noticeably(!) upped the pace and refused to slow down even when we hit some pretty serious climbs a bit later. I stuck to him like glue, though, since there was no way I was going to be dusted with friends watching. Still, I think Jody underestimated how much climbing we had left.

For some reason, the photojournalist in me failed to do his job at some key points on this ride. Chalk that up to me being overexcited, I suppose. Yeah, so here's a shot of Jody climbing up one of the final climbs to the cape, at 4:39 p.m. What I failed to get, however, was a picture of us arriving at the toll booth entrance to this parkland about five minutes earlier. Believe it or not, we had to pay ¥500 each to enter the park in order to finish our ride, which was yet another bit of salt in the wound, if you will. Oh, and the woman we paid was trying to tell us that we really had to hurry, because there was some kind of gate about 2 km ahead at the end of the road that supposedly closed at 5 p.m. Since the road was primarily uphill, we freaked out a bit, thinking that we might not make it. Wouldn't that be ridiculous? Were we going to have to wait until the morning to finish the ride? Was the headline of the day going to be: So close, yet so far!? "This can't be happening," I thought to myself. "No, no, please no!" Our hearts began to race, as did we on our bikes. Off we went, yet again, totally unsure of what lay ahead.

Day 13 Pix: Miyazaki City - Cape Sata, 186 km (Part 1)

In Miyazaki City, we stayed at yet another Toyoko Inn. This time we had to leave our bicycles in the lobby. I didn't mind at all, however, because the crime rate is so low here. Heck, if I remember correctly, I even left my (not exactly inexpensive) cycling shoes next to my bike overnight. Can you imagine leaving your bicycle or other valuable items in the lobby of a hotel where you are from? Probably not, right? Anyway, Jody got a kick out of a lot of things in Japan, including how they simply leave packages (and luggage) plopped on the floor in hotel lobbies, right next to the main entrance.


















Here's another shot of Jody, at 7:17 a.m., this time in front of the hotel, just before we headed out for our final ride of C2C.

As soon as we left the hotel, we actually went straight to a restaurant for breakfast (for the first time on the trip!), so we didn't hit the road until just before 9 a.m. Whereas we were normally rather anxious to get going, this morning we really took our time. That plan almost backfired big time, as I'll explain shortly. Here you see Jody crossing a bridge that leads from downtown Miyazaki City to the southern part of town. The only (moderately) heavy traffic we had to deal with all day was early in the ride.

The farther south we went, the more beautiful the view got. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to capture all of the beauty on film. Also, unlike the previous couple of days, the weather wasn't so great, which took part of the excitement out of the ride. I guess by that time, we were simply looking forward to the ride finally being over, anyway, so it was pretty tough to just sit back in the saddle and enjoy ourselves. Whereas on the last day of B2B we had very little ground to cover before reaching our final destination, on C2C we had a full day of riding, which, in all honesty, is probably the only part of the route planning that I (ever so slightly) regret. Note to self: Make the last day of the next ride (A2A?) a short(er) one.

You can see that there really were very few cars out on the roads on this day, despite it being a Sunday. Even though there are mountains in the picture, most of the ride was either along the coast or on otherwise mostly flat roads. I say "most of the ride," because we were in for a big surprise at the end of the day. Well, two surprises, actually.

We were still riding down the coast at 10:36 a.m., and we had a long way to go.

We rode and rode and rode, finally making a pit-stop just after noon at this Family Mart (convenience store) in Kushima. For a while there, I thought Jody was in full Ironman mode, ready to ride all the way to the cape without stopping. Wouldn't that have been something!? By the way, unlike many people who park their cars outside convenience stores, we did not leave our engines running!

A couple of hours later, we finally saw a sign with our ultimate destination on it. Cape Sata, here we come! Unfortunately, the sign misled us into believing that the cape was just around the corner. Little did we know at the time that we still had nearly three hours of riding left...

Day 12 Pix, Continued

After we got off the ferry in Beppu, shortly after 9 a.m., we got to ride along the coast for a while in beautiful sunshine! Our first stop was Oita, about 10 kilometers up the road.














Here's more or less a close-up of the previous picture, this time via a shot of Jody taking a shot of Jody. I think this type of picture accounts for half of all the pictures he took. I can see Jody now, after having checked to see what a great picture he just took, nodding his head up and down, smiling his big smile, and saying to no one in particular, "Oh, yeah! That's what I'm talkin' about!"














This picture shows the road leading away from Oita and towards some mountains. We had quite a bit of climbing ahead of us, but the roads were good and the weather was great, so we had a fantastic time.

Here we are, at 11:14 a.m., getting ready to do some climbing!














30 minutes later, Jody and I still had quite a bit of work cut out for us, but again, there were no complaints from either of us. We both love climbing and we were both in great spirits.

After we finally made it up to the pass, we had a nice, long, fast, intense downhill ride. Shortly after we reached the bottom, we were greeted by this bridge. Nice shot, Jody!














Here's a picture, taken by Jody, of a typical view of the Japanese countryside in summer, with the rice, mountains, blue sky, traditional-looking home, and small road.














Here's a look at me in the saddle, riding along a river, on the way towards Nobeoka.

Unfortunately, the two of us took very few pictures the rest of the day, so there's not much more to show you for Day 12. I did take this one, however, at 4:54 p.m., as we were passing through Hyuga, on our way to Miyazaki City. This is the last shot I took that day.

Day 12 Pix: Honai - Miyazaki City, 198 km

On Saturday morning, we got up (really!) early, found the port quickly (it was only about 5 kilometers from where we were staying), purchased our tickets on the spot (when I called before we started C2C, they said there was no need to make reservations), and boarded the ferry. Here's a picture of Jody riding into the mouth of the monster herself, at 6:05 a.m., 15 minutes before departure.

Customer service in Japan tends to be fantastic, so it was no surprise that there was someone waiting to secure our bikes for the ride.














Here's a shot looking back at the sun rising over the port of Yawatahama. Shikoku slayed. Kyushu, here we come!

By this point of the ride, my gloves were toast. I guess you could say they were the only member of the party to not survive the hurricane. For some reason, even though I hadn't worn them in days, I continued to bring the gloves along, but I finally chucked them immediately after taking this picture.


















Jody took this picture of me eating "breakfast," which came compliments of our gracious host in Honai, Chelsea. Even though she was out of town, she let us stay at her place, believe it or not, and, what's more, left an entire box of cookies for us and told us that we could take the whole thing if we wanted. Normally, I doubt we would have done that, but, well, considering that we were two hungry bike riders on a mission, there was little doubt what the fate of those cookies would be. Right? We had a few each as a pre-dinner snack last night, a few more each for dessert, and the rest aboard the ferry. Thanks, Chelsea!













While aboard the ferry, we were kind of like little kids in a candy shop, except that we expressed our happiness in the form of taking one picture after another. I guess that's because we spent so much of C2C on our bikes, whereas on the ferry we were free to walk around and enjoy ourselves, just as we did on the other ferry (from Hokkaido to Honshu). It's only 6:30 a.m. so it's still a bit cold on deck, but the view is wonderful.


















As I said, we took tons of pictures on board the ferry. For example, Jody took this picture of me taking a picture...


















... I took this picture of Jody striking his all-too-familiar pensive pose...














... Jody took this picture of one of the more interesting things on the ship (I hate to tell you Jody, but you just barely cut off the "U.")...














... and I took this shot of one of the ship's lifebuoys that includes the vessel's name, Ehime, which is also the name of the prefecture we just left.

Here we are, at 8:58 a.m., just minutes before docking in Beppu. I "interrupted" this picture that Jody was taking in such comical style that we took many more pictures like this one over the course of the final two days of C2C.

Day 11 Pix, Continued

(Apologies to everyone for the long delay in posting anew!)

This is a really cool shot that Jody took that I forgot to include in my last post. Keep in mind that Jody was riding his bike when he took this picture (a few seconds before he snapped the last picture of the previous post).


















I also meant to post this picture of Jody striking his Tour de France stage-winning pose. Once again, you can tell how much fun we were having that day!

I'm not sure what this sign is advertising, but you can probably figure out why I took a picture of it. "JJ" says it all!

Here's a look the road as we approached Matsuyama. We were actually riding in a bike lane, which was a rarity on C2C. The other C2C rarity this photo shows is Jody taking a sip of water.

I have some friends in Kochi, but, as close as we were to them, I knew I wasn't going to see them. Nevertheless, I took this photo to show that I was with them in spirit at that moment. Luckily, Matsuyama was the only congested area that we rode through on the island of Shikoku.

As soon as we got past the city, we were back to quieter roads, which was nice. As you can see, there are hills in the background. Having never been to Shikoku, I didn't realize how mountainous it was.













We later found out that the coastal road we were on was called "Sunset Road." Now you know why, too. You may recall we got a relatively late start that morning, which we weren't all that happy about, but that turned out to be quite a blessing, for two reasons: 1) We ran into our buddy Yuki again; and 2) we got to see this beautiful sunset!














 Right about when we decided it was time to pull over to switch to night gear (i.e., clear shades and lights) ...














 ... we came across this beach. I like this picture, because it is one of the few shots we took of the two of us together, off of our bikes. I think we look both a bit tired (even though we still had a couple of hours of riding left that day) and ecstatic, because of the great weather, the warm night-time air, the relatively light traffic, and the fact that we were so, so close to Kyushu, our final island.

Our bikes took some time off, too, to enjoy the sunset!

This picture wouldn't normally merit posting, but for personal reasons I decided to include it in the blog. For one, it's maybe the only picture from C2C of me resting next to my bike, so I like it. For two, Jody cut off my right foot, which (in my opinion) ruins the picture but makes me laugh, since Jody and I often "argued" over who took the better pictures (and discussed whether or not it matters if you cut someone's feet off).


















Since we rode in the dark the rest of the way to our host's place in Honai (just short of Yawatahama, where we had to catch the ferry the next morning), we didn't take any more snaps until dinnertime. For some reason, I took far fewer food pictures on C2C than I did on B2B, but at least I did capture a few meals on film, such as this one, my double burger. We actually planned to eat somewhere else, but the first restaurant we went to was closed, so we ended up at one of my usual places, a Denny's-like joint called Joyfull. (By the way, Jody gave me the semi-ridiculous hat that I'm wearing. He paid all of 99 cents for it on an auction site that shall remain unnamed...)

Finally, here's Jody with his dinner. Whereas I usually ordered something western, Jody almost always went for something quite Japanese.