Oma to Ryusendo
Weather: mostly sunny to heavy overcast. Low of 14C in the morning, brief high of 22C, then cooler again.
Distance: 360km
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Today was a day of a lot of great roads, and unexpected highlights.
Woke up before 6am, got ready, and left to a mostly sunny morning. First stop was the top of the cape, which was almost deserted, so I managed to get a nice pic of my bike in front of the statues. From there I had decided to detour over the mountains to visit a lookout I had spotted the day before. Picking a slightly different road to the one suggested by the GPS got me to a spot where I smelled sulphur in the forest, and, sure enough, a few corners further on was a bare patch of ground with some steam rising from it.
This turned out to be my first unexpected highlight of the day. There is a temple on top of the mountain, the Orosezan Bodaji, which is built right on top of the last remaining heat on this mostly extinct volcano. Surprisingly it was already open for visitors at shortly past 7am! Apart from it being quite a nice temple the entrance fee also lets visitors wander amongst some small fumaroles. Oddly enough a lot of them were surrounded by stacked piles of rocks with dozens of brightly coloured plastic windwheels stuck i them.. I had been meaning to find something volcanic so this was a very welcome, if somewhat unexpected, fulfillment.
From there it was on to the observatory, but part-way along the access road a gate blocked my way. Nothing for it but to turn back, When I got to the junction with the main road, a couple of workers had just pulled up. I briefly asked them about the closed road and they said the observatory doesn’t open until 8:30.. so it was either wait, or skip it. I chose the latter as I was sick of arriving at my destinations after dark..
From there I enjoyed a lot of great roads, mostly through farmland. At one stage I was following Route 45, and decided to actually follow its full loop rather than take the GPS-suggested shortcut, and to my surprise, the 45 suddenly turned into a little farm gravel road, which then petered out even more into a very overgrown track, at which point I decided that I had had enough of dirt roads which then end up blocked, and turned back.
My next waypoint was the Amber Museum, or so I thought. It turned out to be a ramen shop, which I presumably had picked just for the routing, and I arrived there at the same time as the owner who looked at me rather amusedly as they unlocked the shop.. It was too early for lunch anyway, so I kept going. Quite a bit further on was the Amber museum, which was alright. They even had some information in english, and covered a little bit of the history of amber. Turns out the amber found in Japan is amongst the oldest, dating back to 85million years ago, well into the age of dinosaurs.
Not much further down the road was Akkado Cave, well worth a visit! This was my second unexpected highlight. It’s nowhere near as famous as nearby Ryusendo Cave, but I almost liked it more as it was a more natural experience with limited infrastructure and even a couple of side-tunnels which are completely unlit and which you’re still allowed to crawl into. This cave is also Japan’s longest at 23.6km deep, although only the first 500m are developed and open to the pubic. Apparently there is an 8-hour guided tour into the depths.. Had a nice little chat with the proprietor, I think he was a bit bored and just wanted someone to talk to. I guess not so many people go there overall, certainly not many on a Friday afternoon!
Finally I headed to Ryusendo Onsen, my hotel for the night, where I also got a ticket to Ryusendo Cave. I quickly dashed to the cave, and wow, completely different experience but also extremely worthwhile as there is an underground river flowing along most of the pulic area, as well as 3 underground lakes with lights suspended in their depths. The ticket is also good for the “science cave” across the road. Before the river cut through the gorge it was a single cave system. The science cave is definitely also worth a visit – while the “science” bit is a bit dated, the cave itself has much better stalactites than the main cave, although doesn’t come anywhere near the scale of it,
Finally back to the hotel for onsen and dinner. Secondlast day tomorrow..
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