Today I left Kyoto to make the trip by train to Onomichi, which is the Honshu starting point of the Shinmanami Kaido, a 70km cycling friendly route over the Inland Sea to Imabari in Shikoku. It’s a bit of an ordeal hauling your bike and luggage onto the train but it was much easier with the Rinko bike bag purchased in Kyoto. Usually I do two trips up to the train platform, one for the bike, one for the baggage. Problem was, I had to change trains three times which meant three different platforms.
Onomichi is lovely and caters to cyclists riding the Shimanami Kaido with many hostels and lots of small restaurants (fish the specialty of course) and helpfully, many, many places to park your bike. The steep hillside behind the railway line and town spilling down to the shore is compact and accessible, with narrow streets. Arriving, it kind of felt like emerging from a tunnel through a keyhole opening, squeezing through to islands in the Seto Nakai, the Inland Sea.
The narrow harbour is crowded with cranes, ships, ferries and fishing boats and nice to walk or bike around in the evening sun. A very welcoming place.
The hostel I stayed at had a small adjoining bar and the owner served up some dishes after I conveyed a kind of, “I’ll have what they’re having.” Pointing to the two other patrons beside me. All delicious, especially a craft beer from Hokkaido brewed by Sapporo called Sorachi 1984. Exquisite.
Onimichi port
A memory surfaces
Friends on a journey
