Goju Hashiman to Gifu
Horrible sleep last night, about 3 hours due to the scratchy throat, congestion and coughing.
Breakfast was beautiful but difficult to face first thing in the morning; and way too much.
So off we set to explore the castle at Goju Hashiman, rebuilt from the Edo period and quite impressive. So was the hill on the way up; we rode halfway, and then walked the rest but those were some steep grades at the bottom! Unfortunately I didn’t remember to start my bike computer so those will forever be lost.
Lovely views from the castle, and it was quite an impressive wooden structure of many floors with excellent viewpoints.
Some pretty leaves up here as well
You can see it was another spectacular sunny day and we were soon down to shorts and short sleeves again.
I joked that this diarama depicted us all at the 6 p.m. briefing from Tsuyen (going over the next day, usually in way too much detail so we couldn’t remember it all).
walking up the path after ditching the bikes
Then we went into the historical old town, which was lovely. It had a system of waterways and fish are kept in them; the trout and coi must have been about 5-6 lbs. Really pretty area though; water was very important in the development of Goju Hashiman.
a gate/garden we passed on the walk
Lots of tourists starting to show up though we were there by 9:30 (and at the castle at opening).
The manhole covers are all attractively decorated, with fish as motifs. The town is said to have a fish shape (largely dictated by steep mountains around it limiting further outward growth).
A quick stop at a temple, where Tsuyen taught us how to do a Buddhist prayer
He also demonstrated the meaning behind some of the sumo wrestler moves.
And then we hit the road. “Free ride” after the first few km as we followed the same country road without turning. Lovely and warm, with the river babbling either on our right or left.
It was billed as flat or downhill, but of course had a number of undulations…
We leapfrogged each other taking pictures at different spots. One couple stopped and had a dip in the river which they said was surprisingly warm.
Happily, after a small bit of highway at the start we moved onto secondary roads, which meandered through small villages and forests. Alas, early on I discovered I’d lost a cleat so was trapped onto the pedal at one stop; had to get my foot out of the shoe to get it off and that was it for the left clip for the rest of the day. I suspect the gravel path on the way up to the castle was the culprit.
These roads would have been busy with tourist traffic prior to the superhighways being built. The infrastructure in Japan is impressive, and we wandered under several large structures as we did every day.
We got to lunch at Mino at a lovely bakery where Tsuyen had pre-ordered sandwiches and coffee – very tasty. Then an hour to wander around this quiet and pretty village which is known for its’ rice paper products. There were sculptures protected in plexiglass all over town, and they would have been a lovely sight at night as they were all illuminated. It was quite hot so I found a quiet courtyard in the shade that was public space, with the usual excellent public bathroom.
some of my favourite paper sculptures:
and my favourite…
paper lanterns beautifully crafted with all kinds of designs…
Then it was on the road again after watching more Japanese fighter jets passing overhead… a much busier route into town so we all kept together, and eventually reached Gifu with another stop. It was getting lateish at this point and we had a stop at a large Buddha statue so I was wondering what time we would arrive (hoping it was in the light!).
gardens in the grounds of the buddhist shrine
I guess we would have made it in before dark but two of the cyclists collided at a stoplight on the last 4 km into town and one got a bit of a jolt. He tried to get back on the bike again and promptly fell over again, so a taxi was called, the bikes were locked up to be picked up by Mannu and we finally got underway again. Bumps and bruises, nothing major but a shook up cyclist. The main reason I linger at the back with some distance – I’m surprised this hasn’t happened before, some of the riders are pretty erratic.
Although the distance wasn’t huge today, nor the elevation gain, being out all day in the heat was tiring; the older fellow, Gordon (79 y.o.) opted for a regular bike today rather than his usual e-bike as the profile was supposed to be gentle downhill. He arrived very tired, and I think regretted the swap during those undulations we had all day… I think I was the tiredest today of all the days out, but more due to the lousy sleep and the cold trying to pounce.
An exciting night after 6 p.m. briefing trying to manage the coin laundry – thought I’d take advantage of the machines, and hopefully tit will do better on the jeans than I’ve been able to do by hand. It did a lousy job of drying though, took three cycles and they still came out very damp. Hope they will dry overnight. TG for the translator, which was also a boon looking for throat lozenges. Dinner was miso soup and sushi from Family Mart just down the street; a relief not to have to go to a restaurant and navigate the menu, and eat a huge meal late. Fingers crossed to sleep tonight! The hotel room is abysmally hot, so I have the ac on and the window open; it’s a very basic hotel tonight, down a grade from APA in Tokyo where I stayed initially.
We’ve essentially finished the cycling now, bar a short 40 km loop in Kyoto where we head to tomorrow by public transport. The plan is to swap the pedals back to the original and I can wear runners for that trip which is probably better anyway as we will be doing a lot of walking during the day. Just not sure how I got everything into the case when I left??? I will have to do a careful pack in Kyoto before heading back to Tokyo.
Highlight today: the paper sculptures in Mino
Mileage: ~63 km adding in the bit I didn’t record, and definitely > 200 m elev gain as that first hill was wicked. We had a big buildup to the “wall” before Mino – of course the competitive ones raced up it. I walked given I couldn’t release my clips… that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.