The Plan
Take my bike up to the northern tip of Japan this August and pedal south and west 'till there's no more Japan left. Counting on about 2 or 3 months.
Read more about The Plan...
Sponsor Me
I'm hoping to use my cycling trip across Japan to raise some money for an organisation called LEPRA.You can help me by sponsoring my bike ride.
Find out more here...
Archives
May 2006June 2006
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September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
Photos
Sunday, June 25, 2006
You Can Never Be Too Fit!
With less than 2 months to go until I head off across the country, I figure it wouldn't be a bad idea to at least try one shorter trip before I go. Hey, I guess you can never be too fit... Last Saturday I loaded up my bike with my small mountain of gear and just took off from the front door on my first ever bicycle tour. Two days and about 114 km later, I cycled back up my driveway and collapsed in a catatonic heap on the grass. Washed-up jellyfish have more spunk than this...
The first day was all up and up and into the mountains - through quiet cedar forests, citron orchards, old abandoned farm houses and babbling brooks. Other than the occasional grey-haired farmer planting out the last of the rice seedlings for the year, I didn't see a soul. I often wonder what will happen to rural Japan in another decade or two, when the last of these old farmers have gone... Will these mountains just revert back to wilderness?
On the other side of the mountains, the road shot straight down to the coast and the busy surfing beach called Ikumi. Not much in the way of waves while I was there, a fact that never seems to deter the hundreds of Japanese surfers out there showing off the latest surf fashions.
I set up camp a few kilometers further up the coast - at a secluded beach called Shirahama. It's quite a scenic spot, and I'd hoped to wake up early the next morning to grab a few dawn photos. In the end though, I was so thoroughly exhausted from just one day (actually more like just half a day) in the saddle that I slept right through until mid-morning.
The next day I followed the coast road towards Muroto. On this stretch, the mountains plunge straight into the sea, and apparently keep going straight down into the ocean depths from there (this is where Muroto extracts it's Deep-Sea-Water from). After lunch with Yocchan in Muroto city, I struggled off home on the last leg of my trip - up the coast and back to Kitagawa. Exhausted!
[photos]
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Thirty!
Well, I am now 30! Kind of a scary thought...Big thanks to everyone who came to my birthday party last Saturday. It was a really good night. Thank you also for your donations to my fund-raising effort. I managed to raise about 150,000 yen that night, which I will
Fundraising Target: £1000
