We arrived in Onomichi very early in the morning and left our bags in train station lockers. After buying a breakfast of curry doughnuts from the French bakery at the station (curry doughnuts are incredible, and pretty much every station has a French bakery) we headed over the road to hire bicycles. The Shimanami Kaido is a cycle path that spans six islands over 70 km and we were keen to give it a go. We hired bikes from a guy who gave us the option of either returning them to him at the end of the day or dropping them off at the other end. He didn’t really speak any English, so we couldn’t figure out the best option, but as out hotel was near the start-point we decided to return them to him later. Armed with a map, some snacks and some water, we set off.

The route

We first took a little ferry over to the first island and then we started pedalling. The route was very well marked, and the weather was great. There were some sneaky hills along the way, but everything was going well. We were amused to find vending machines along the side of the road out in the open countryside, but these were actually pretty handy.

We decided to pedal all the way, and then get the ferry back. However, when we got to the far end – where the route just suddenly stopped in the middle of a road – we realised that getting home wasn’t going to be all that simple. The ferry only took you half of the way, where you would then have to pedal around 15 miles to get the next ferry which would take you back to Onomichi. After cycling more than 70 km, I wasn’t feeling particularly keen for this plan, especially when I realised that there was only 20 minutes to make the cycle (impossible). This left us with either cycling back from the end of the first ferry – which was going to take a couple of hours, we had no lights, and my bum was sore from cycling 70 km on a ropey bike – or getting on a coach which didn’t allow bikes on. In the end we plumped for the coach, left our bikes at the hire place at the other end, and forfeited our deposit. Perhaps this is what the guy at the hire place was trying to describe to us!

When we got back to Onomichi, we climbed 360 steps up a steep hillside to get to our ryokan. This was the first time we had stayed in traditional Japanese accommodation, complete with paper walls and robes, and it was beautiful.

The beautiful screen doors in our ryokan Miharashi-tei

The view from the ryokan at night

Sunrise

The sun streaming into our room