Last week Warren and Jim headed home for America. Kate and the children are now away, so I have been left to fend for myself. Before coming to Japan Miyazaki san gave me a list of his recommended roads to drive. I tried to do a couple of the roads with the family, but I only ended up with a sick child and angry wife. Sunday after I put Warren and Jim on the train to the airport I set off to drive all the roads in one day. I didn't know how far it would be or how long it would take, but I was determined to drive all of them. In the end I ended up driving from 2:30 pm to 3:30 am (the next day). The distance covered was 303 miles with 24,279 ft of climbing.
The first decision I was faced with was which car to drive. The Odyssey is big, heavy, but has a lot of power and the Diva is small, light, sports suspension, but no power. Finally I decided that I would take the Diva because it is small and light and the roads are typically really narrow so I felt it would be more fun to drive. The map below shows the location for the attached pictures.
I realized while driving that the first road was one I had already ridden my bicycle on during one of our cycling trips. It is a different experience in a car and I was going the opposite direction so that mixed it up as well. Even though the car has no power I was able to hold enough speed in the corners to put pressure on two cars. Eventually they pulled over to let me by. The first picture is taken at the rest stop on the way up Irohazaki going toward Nikko lake. It shows my trusty steed in the mountain scenery.
I realized while driving that the first road was one I had already ridden my bicycle on during one of our cycling trips. It is a different experience in a car and I was going the opposite direction so that mixed it up as well. Even though the car has no power I was able to hold enough speed in the corners to put pressure on two cars. Eventually they pulled over to let me by. The first picture is taken at the rest stop on the way up Irohazaki going toward Nikko lake. It shows my trusty steed in the mountain scenery.
After passing Nikko lake I turned right and headed out into the mountains. Miyazaki drove these roads a number of years ago and since then some of them are no longer open to car traffic. While on this road I discovered one of those roads. I was able to re-route myself to link up with one of the other recommendations, so it didn't set me back much. These roads were very narrow and like others I have talked about were almost one lane in many parts. While driving on this set of roads I didn't see any other cars. This made me a little nervous as there was debris on the roads in the form of rocks and sticks and I was a little concerned I may hit something and damage the car. If I became stranded I would have to resort to living with the monkeys and I am not much in to eating bugs off of hairy animals backs.
This picture shows one of many of the watch for falling rocks signs along the route.
Another common sight was damaged guard rails. Hopefully whoever did this one came out of it alive.
A picture of a small portion of the mountain road.
Another potential hazard are the ditches that are present on many of the roads in the mountains. In one of the Initial D episodes, Takumi passes his opponent by unweighting the inside tire and crossing this type of ditch making it possible for him to pass on the inside line. I didn't trust myself or the Diva to try anything like that (besides that is a cartoon and not real) so I felt it was best to just avoid them. If you do drop a tire in this type of ditch you are finished for the day..
While it was light out and not raining really hard I was able to enjoy the scenery from the mountains. Below is one of the lakes I passed as well as a cool 1 lane bridge.
Probably when I was half way I decided that this was not a great idea to do all in one night. It was a bit tedious with so many corners to cover over this distance. The other thing is I became really tired. Not only are you holding yourself in the seat through each corner but it becomes mentally tiring to concentrate this hard for so long. I had to constantly look for other cars, debris, ditches, and any other hazards. Really it would be best to enjoy these roads on separate days. Anyway I told myself I was going to do all of them in one night so I was determined to finish. At about 11:00 I started to run out of gas. Actually I had turned for home and given up on the last road because I couldn't find an open gas station. After going about 3 miles I found an open station and decided I was going to finish. I went all the way out to the last road and at about 1:15 was confronted with the following sign and realization that the road I was on would not connect to the same road on the other side of the mountain.
At this point I had invested so much time that I felt I couldn't give up. I took another road around to connect to the road I wanted. It turned out to be a crazy road in the middle of nowhere. Essentially one lane with weeds and trees sticking in to the road. I finished the entire portion I could with my fingers crossed. That road was the last on the list and so I headed home. I had to hid a vending machine for a coffee and later picked up a snack of two curry rolls from the 7/11. In the end it was an amazing drive, but man I was tired by the time I got home at 3:30. Maybe even a little car sick....
I will be busy the next couple of weeks so I am going to miss a few blog postings. After that I plan to get back on the once a week schedule. I have to get a picture of our rice field, it is really filled in now.
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