しまなみ海道

The Shimanami Kaido is a 75km National cycling route between Hiroshima and Ehime prefectures. More spefically it goes between the cities of Onomichi and Imabari. The route is made up of 6 different islands connected by 7 bridges crossing over the Seto Sea.

Because I had 3 days to explore (March 21st to 24th), I ended up cycled over 200kms while exploring all the side paths I could. Personally I would 100% reccomend this as a must do in Japan, currently my favorite thing I have done here while travelling the country.

Day 1

I took the bullet train from Tokyo Station to Shin-Onomichi Station, with a transfer at Okayama Station. After assembling my bike I got to my hostel around ~10pm. I did spend more time then I thought I would fiddeling with my back tire.

Stayed at Guesthouse Yadocurly, owner was nice and willing to stay late to let me check in.

After checking in I walked to the main stations, grabbed some combini dinner before heading to bed. Guy below me did snore like an absolute beast, earbuds came in clutch...

Day 2

Started early, about 7:30, as the hostel room got rather loud in the morning. Was planning on getting some food on the first island but nothing was open due to the time.

Didnt end up deviating from the main route on the first island and went through it very relaxed. Although on the second island, Innoshima, I almost went to a side path right away, the Shirataki Flower Line. Where I honestly didn't see to many flowers. Although, the main reason I wanted to explore this way was the Shiratakiyama Gohyaku-Rakan Statues (500 'Rakan' Disciples of Buddha Statues).

These were super cool and a old guy even gave me a mikan he had picked that morning, free breakfast! For the rest of Innoshima I followed the main route and only stopped to take some photos of the bridge.

On the next island Ikuchijima I stopped for some Gelato by the sea at Dolce Ice Cream, nice and chill sopt by the water and the cirtus gelato slapped. Afterwards I stopped at this rather strang and somewhat new temple in the main town of Ikuchijima. Kousanji, apperantly built by some guy who was good at French welding and built this temple for his Mom? Took some cool pics thou.

After grabbing lunch I set off once more to make it to the next island Ooshima. This is where I would be staying the night as well as exploring for the rest of the day. Ooshima is basically the half-way point for the route so it had this really nice cyclist sanctuary. Since I was staying on this island and still had a decent amount of time to explore I ended up doing a route around the north side of Ooshima. To be honest there wasnt much beside beaches and some orchards but nonetheless the ride was quite pleasant. It even got warm enough that I was a little burnt by the end of the day.

Overall by the end of day 2 I had ridden about 66kms. For both day 2 and day 3 I stay at this hostel I-LINK HOSTEL ＆ CAFE SHIMANAMI, it was good for what it was but the food was a little expensive.

Day 3

Day 3 started early much like day 2 but also a little wet. The hostel didn't do any breakfast unless you had booked the night before so I just ran to the family mart across the road for some snacks and a coffee before heading onwards.

The rain didn't last long, by about 30 - 45 mins it had stopped all together. Over the next couple islands Hakatajima and Oshima and didn't stop much. For Hakatajima I just followed the main route and planned to take the ferry back from Imabari to Hakatajima to explore the other side. While for Oshima I didn't stop much but took the route along the coast to enjoy the sea air. Along this I stopped at a shrine on the side of the hill and snapped this photo.

After making it to the mainland of Shikoku not late into the day, maybe around 11:00am I had some snacks before the rain began to pick up again. Also took some more photos.

The last stretch was biking about 5kms into Imabari to get to Imabari station. At this point I wanted to find a cafe or something for some food and a latte. But I was rather dissapointed by the ending of this journey as Imabari was a bit of a dud with not much open I ended up just going to the Little Mermaid at the station to get some food.

Now leaving Imabari was my mess up, I had planned on takin the ferry back to Hakatajima so I could bike back around the long way, instead I ended up getting on a ferry that took me to Ooshima/Okamura. I had even made sure to double check with the staff, I guess they didn't understand my Japanese.

Because of this I ended up cycling the South bit of Ooshima back to the hostel, where I chilled for a bit before riding into town for dinner and Onsen.

Day 4

The final day I started a little later then the other 2 days and biked back to Onomichi in almost one shot. I took the main route other then taking the other side of the coast on Ikuchijima. I made one quick stop on Innoshima for some breakfast/coffee at a place that was open. I wanted to be somewhat quick heading back so that I could explore more of Onomichi as I didn't look around much on the first night.

I got to Onomichi around 11:30 and walked the temple walk, ate food and even had time to clean up my bike before heading to Shin-Onomichi station for bike deconstruction and the shinkansen home.

The Shimanami-kaido is to date my favorite trip I have done in Japan and I hope to be able to do some more cycling trips moving forward. This was a test trip for me to see if I would like doing this type of trip. A couple things I would like to have before my next one would be a better system for carrying my luggage as I had it all in my backpack. Secondly, bike shorts would be nice. Or even just more padding as my but was getting irritated. I think for my next trip I would like to see how it is when camping and biking!

Photo Credits