At the beginning of this trip I had not planned to visit Niigata but then realized, if I had time, and Junko and Rieko were in town, then I could also visit Sado Island. It was one of the stops we had hoped to make on the way up the west of coast on Amigo in 2018, but a problem with the Japan Coast Guard near Kanazawa made that impossible.
We were detained for several days because we inadvertently broke the law after getting tangled up in a fishing net and entered a closed port without a permit. After that delay there was no more time in the weather window to make stops up the coast.
Sado Island is portrayed as a wild place, with mythical (benevolent) demons and other beasts. It definitely felt more rough and ready than mainland Honshu, maybe a bit more like Hokkaido but I was also suprised at how large and spread out Sado city was. The ride from the ferry port of Ryotsu became quite busy and suburban closer to the other side of the island. It was also a mostly flat portion, thankfully, since the rest of the Sado is very mountainous.
Ideally, I would have liked to ride around the whole island but didn’t have enough time to do that, so made my base at a hostel recommended by the owner of the guesthouse I was at in Niigata. Besides the old house in Suo Oshima, this was probably the nicest place I stayed, a renovated former ryokan with a wood stove keeping the entrance area warm, a bar open in the evening, shared kitchen and toilets and bath, a workspace and, amazingly, a wood fired sauna installed in a former traditional storehouse.
Today I rode up the coast as far as I could and it was such a relief to ride without loaded bags on the back. The coast is craggy and rugged, and traffic was light. Perfect riding, some hills but none overly insurmountable.
On the way back I took a different route which cut away from the coast, with an interminably long tunnel coming out onto forested hills, and I kept thinking this would be a place where one of the mythical appartions could suddenly appear out of the bush. The highway was busy but sure enough, a smaller road headed off adjacent to the highway, making the ride much more enjoyable.
A splendid day on Sado Island and a sauna in the afternoon. I could not ask for anything more.
Many spirits here
Crashing waves upon the shore
Lift me to high ground
