Tokyo to Nagoya: Day 3 September 19 2014
Strava map day 3. My morning ride put me right into the middle of the school run. I rode with packs of kids pedaling to school. It was fun and a few of them wanted to race me. We rode together for probably 4 miles before they turned off towards their school. I gotta say it seems like a better life with kids riding bikes to school. My route jumped around a bit but I finally got myself back to the coast. Here the mountains pushed right up to the water and as I turned on to the only road heading along the coast I found the way blocked by caution signs. I couldn’t read the signs of course but it seemed pretty obvious that they were saying the road was closed ahead. I pedaled on anyway and confirmed my suspicions when I realized there was not one single car on this road. After riding in heavy traffic for so many miles it was almost erie to be in complete silence. When I rode through a long and echoey tunnel it was downright creepy. My route started climbing steeply and 5 miles in I was really starting to get nervous I would have to turn back. Still not one single car had passed and the road was completely deserted. It was beautiful though! As I climbed higher and higher I would periodically find the roadway overlooking a huge drop into the ocean far below. The woods on the side of the road were lush with bamboo and birds. The air was clean. I was having so much fun and so thankful for the peace and quiet I decided to just keep going. Even if the road was completely impassible retracing my steps would be nice. After 10 or so miles I had reached the peak and started a long decent. I raced through a few more empty tunnels and finally came to the end of the road. A tunnel with a barricade in front of it and then a big fence blocking off the entrance entirely. If it had been in the states I’m positive I would not have done this, but out here all alone I thought it would be fun to just keep exploring. I managed to get my bike over the fence and kept on riding. Things seemed even more quiet here and the next tunnel’s roadway was strewn with debris and even grass starting to grow in the cracks of the roadway. I kept on going. I rounded a corner and could see far ahead a old resort partially collapsed on the edge of a cliff. The roadway too appeared to be washed away. I was feeling pretty sure I was going to have to turn back but I kept going on. Another set of barricades were across the roadway with even more serious looking warning signs. Climbed over those and finally got to where the road was collapsed down the cliff. A 100 yard section […]
