Demachiyanagi trip #1 (Kyoto-fu)

Extending my reach from Nisshin with a second two-day tour, this time to Kyoto. The first night was a repeat visit to Takatoriyama campground in Taga County, Shiga Prefecture, followed by a hotel stay in Otsu City, setting up a short push on the third day to make a luncheon appointment with an old friend in Kyoto before riding Shinkansen back to Nagoya.

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This ride was planned backward from a luncheon appointment with a colleague and old friend now living in Kyoto, set for Monday, March 31st. The first leg was a repeat of the journey to Takatoriyama Fureai Park in October of 2023.

• GPX data: Nisshin ↣ Takatoriyama

There was a strong headwind, exactly as predicted by the weather forecast. The first 60+ kilometers of the route are very flat, and while I’d normally move at 15-20 kph on good roads, the wind pushed me down to about 10 or even 8 kph. Just enough resistance to make me slightly delerious with the absurdity of the extra effort, without quite tipping the scales to frustration.

As on the previous ride over this route, I arrived at the Yōrō expressway rest area around lunchtime. As before, I rode the bike off the levee into the delivery area at the back of the restaurants, but this time rolled the bike through the passageway and parked it in a clear space in front of the bathrooms. With weekend traffic the place was packed this time, and as I’d brought along a batch of waffles, I stocked up on water and stood near the bike guzzling water and munching on them.

I had a nice break spent people-watching until I was approached by a lady in uniform, who I think must have been the manager from the back office. She informed me that bicycles were prohibited. This was at about the 60 kilometer mark of a 107 kilometer ride, and I didn’t exactly jump to attention, deliberately finishing off the waffle I was working on before responding properly. I said okay, that I’d move it, and then took a drink of water and started in on the next waffle. She stressed that a customer of the rest area had reported the bike, and asked (firmly but not impolitely) that I move it immediately (早急に). I responded lackadaisically that I would move it immediately, closed up the panniers, and walked it away down the sidewalk toward the tiny designated bicycle parking patch under her watchful gaze.

It was a civilized interaction, but with mild road fatigue setting in I was a little annoyed … until I reflected that I wasn’t under risk of arrest or deportation for failing to show remorse over my breach of etiquette. Anyway, I parked the bike and returned to the sidewalk with the remainder of my bag of waffles, sullen to a fault.

Beyond the rest area the route runs toward a crossing over the Kiso River. Shortly before the crossing, I passed a few houses with, er, striking exteriors. I’d call them uncharacteristic, but you do run into some odd artifacts in the countryside (e.g. the minivan with patriotic flag and Mickey Mouse sunscreen en route to Gero hot springs, or the colorful diorama en route to Hamamatsu. The less colorful of the two is not very clear in the photo: a group of dilapidated mannequins are standing on the front porch. (It was pretty spooky, but maybe you had to be there.) While I was stopped, a man walking a dog came out of another house and we exchanged cheery greetings. It seems I fit right in, which is encouraging.

Beyond the Kiso River, the route passes through the Sekigahara battleground. I was oblivious until I passed this sign. Shortly before this point, the route had turned off from a trafficked road into a paved access path, and I had a brief exchange with a man emerging from a house at the junction. Where are you headed, good weather today, take care, the usual pleasantries. I took a snap of the sign because I thought it must be related to the historic battle for hegemony, but I didn’t explore the monuments indicated and the belated history lesson had to wait until I’d returned home.

Nearing the foothills bordering Lake Biwa, I passed another monument novel to me at the time. When Twitter (now “❌” or “✗”) was purchased by Elon Musk, I deleted (or attempted to delete) my account there and began using Mastodon instead. It was a good choice and it’s been a good experience. So when I passed this long-snouted edifice, I couldn’t resist the novelty of it and stopped for a photo. It turns out not to be a mastodon, of course, but an extinct species of elephant that grazed in Japan until, er, our species arrived.

A short distance beyond the monument to Naumann’s Elephant, I passed a small vendor truck making the rounds, blaring the long melancholy whistle that I’d learned long ago to associate with tofu vendors. As campground was by not not terribly far away, I stopped to shop—and found that it was more of a mobile convenience store. I bought a fried chicken cutlet to spice up the evening meal and pushed on.

I reached the campground just about dusk, registered and paid up at the front desk, and set up the tent in lamplight. Since it was (again) the off-season, and I was (again!) the only person in the tent-camping area, I had my pick of spots. In my stroll around, I passed over the spot below because, in a hasty glance by LED torchlight and with sleepiness layering on over fatigue, I thought it might be a cross. In the light of morning, I realized it was just a broken site-number sign, possibly for Spot 13, which would have been fine.

The second day’s ride was shorter, about 65km against the first day’s 107km push. It was also almost entirely downhill for a change. It set off in good spirits at 9:00 on the route I’d dialled in before setting off on the Saturday morning. This would not end well.

• GPX data: Takatoriyama ↣ Otsu NG

I became confused almost immediately, when a left turn about 100 meters from the campground entrance directed me into a gravel access road blocked by a “Do not enter” sign, and with cedar saplings beginning to sprout in its untravelled tracks. Despite past encounters with paths with similar markings that ended badly, it was morning, I was feeling fresh, and I pressed on. And it ended badly.

The photographs below show the gate that terminated the route, about 1km down the track; but they don’t quite capture the full atmosphere of the scene. The fence and the gate were topped with electrified wires, and stretched to the limit of vision in both directions (up the hill to the left, and around rice fields and beyond to the right). Someone had invested a lot of resources into blocking all mammilian traffic from proceeding down this hill.¹ It took me a few minutes to reconcile myself to swapping my riding cleats for the lightweight hiking boots for the get-off-and-push work of returning to the original junction.

Back at the junction near the campground, I was able to get a signal on the smartphone (whew!), and laid in an alternative route to the hotel in Otsu.

• GPX data: Takatoriyama ↣ Otsu NG

The descent out of the mountains (wheee!) let on to an expanse of farmland that caught me off guard in a couple of ways. It was more extensive that I’d imagined, and more exclusively agricultural, with no stores of any kind, only sheds and silos and fields criss-crossed by perpendicular access roads. I grew a bit hungry during this long segment, but every turn of the zig-zag route across the fields let on to the same view of endless fields. The second thing I’d not fully anticipated was the wind. I’d known that the forecast was for a stronger wind on this Sunday than I’d faced on the Saturday, but I hadn’t absorbed that it would be a full-on headwind for most of the distance. Again I was down to 10 kph, and working harder than I would have liked. Part of the mild hunger I was feeling was probably just a desire to stop somewhere and take a break.

The course eventually turned off to the south as the route approached Lake Biwa, and it was around there that proper cycleways began to appear—not just single-track paved ways with little traffic, but a dedicated joined-up network of courses built exclusively and explicitly for pedestrians and bicycles. As the fencing and the signage below show, it’s all a quite deliberate feature of prefectural and local planning.

I think it was a little beyond this point (?) that I came to a Lawson’s convenience store, and was finally able to get some food and top up on water. Two pairs of fellow cyclists stopped in while I was there, and several groups rolled past on the cycleway. Biking is very much a thing around the lake.

After meeting the coastline of Lake Biwa, the route turned back to the west, which unfortunately gave me another dose of headwind. The goal was near by now though, with 10km or less to travel as I recall, and I took an interest in the parks dotted along the edge of the lake. Despite the wind, with the warming weather families and groups were out with barbecue sets and some with tents, which made me wonder about the possibilities for overnight camping. Because once I’d seen the lake, and seen the number of cyclists of all types and levels making use of the cycleway around it, I began to think about its eventual circumnavigation. If that happens, it’ll take several days, and I’ll need spots to overnight, and freebie spots that need no advance reservation would make for greater flexibility and reduce the cost.

So I kept my eye on the revelers as I passed each site, but I saw no evidence of overnight stayovers. All seemed to be day campers out for a barbecue, with tents serving only as a privacy shield or sunscreen. I took a snap of the rules at one site for future reference, and before writing up these post-trip notes I called the prefectural contact number on the sign. I learned that overnight stays are permitted (yay), but I was cautioned that these are not “camping grounds,” but “parks.” Because although there are toilets, there is no shower. And thus I learned something about the local definition of “camping” that I hadn’t known before.

At a much larger rest area, I pulled off to take a breather, stretch my legs, and inspect the statue shown below. See the alt-text on the photos for details.

Despite the slog against headwinds, I arrived at the le Lac Hotel in Otsu earlier than planned with plenty of daylight. I checked in, locked the bike up outside, carted the gear up to the room, cleaned up and changed, and strolled out near dusk to explore the surroundings. That part of Otsu is an industrial district, with a large Toray plant or research facility dominating the waterfront a few blocks from the hotel. There were several izakaya nearby, I was definitely ready for a meal and a beer or two, and by the time I’d finished my survey stroll it was 17:00 and one place was open for happy hour.

I made it a modest bar crawl of the three izakaya encountered in my stroll. The selfie below was taken at the first, but the best of the three was Nekko (根っこ), a yakitori place with good food, an inviting atmosphere and brimming with conversation. After I was seated at the counter, a more senior member of staff came to be sure I was checked out on the menus, and I think that I was okay with the language. As I sat and ate and drank, I had a view into the kitchen and grill, and saw that on this busy evening the woman who had come to check me out on things was the kingpin of management, and presumably one of the owners. In the narrow kitchen space she stood next to the man running the grill (possibly her husband?), and coordinated with kitchen helpers and servers as the orders flowed in. A well oiled machine. The menus below are from that shop.

I’d arranged to overnight in Otsu in part because accommodation costs in Kyoto proper are steep, and Otsu is a short ride away.

• GPX data: Otsu ↣ Demachiyanagi

The route from Otsu to the rendezvous point for our lunch engagement was short as the crow flies, but with one climb that I expected to be get-off-and-push steep, and it did not disappoint. In contrast to most such huff-and-puff segments, though, I was passed by a couple of cyclists on high-end road bikes who took on the hill without dismounting (although veery slowly), and an elderly hiker with whom I struck up a conversation. His son, it happened, is in New York, and he had a map that was helpful at the junction where we parted ways, confirming that the access road recommended by my navigation was indeed a through road. It was a precipitous drop, followed by a modest climb over another hill beyond, and I soon arrived at the river confluence at Demachiyanagi.

The photo below is my first attempt at splicing shots from my ageing phone camera into a panorama, it at least gives and idea of the scene. I arrived quite early, contacted my friend to confirm arrival, and parked the bike and gear in an underground bicycle garage (which was deserted, so I changed clothes down there next to the bike). I enjoyed a long stroll exploring both sides of the river, stopped in at a tsukemono-ya for prezzies to share with neighbors, and met my friend for lunch at a Palestinian restaurant and a long chat.

It was a straight shot from Demachiyanagi south to Kyoto Station. I broke down the bike and bagged it, moved the rear pannier contents into a duffle with shoulder straps, secured a ticket with the SmartEX app, wore the front panniers as bandoliers, hoisted the duffle, shouldered the bike, and made my way to the platform. The process would be reversed on arrival at Nagoya Station, but the photo below was taken before I began the repacking in Kyoto.

I think the map below is close to the route I took home. My habit when travelling home from downtown has been to first ride to the Higashiyama campus of Nagoya University where I used to work, and then take a familiar route from there home to the house. This route runs to the south of the universiy. It was a fresh experience and a little disorienting at first, but more direct, and I think a little faster.

• GPX data: Nagoya ↣ Nisshin

The car I rode (Car 6 on a Tokyo-bound train) was conveniently located near stairs that led down to the Silver Clock wickets. By the time I’d rebuilt the bike and mounted the gear it was dark, but I had lights and off I went. I grew confused, drifted from the recommended course, and when I hit an unfamiliar climb, I stopped to check the route. Seeing that I was well off course, I abandoned the original route and set a fresh course directly home. That worked out okay, and I connected with the familiar route home beyond the university, but in the last kilometer (!) it began raining cats and dogs.

And with that final word of welcome from Mother Nature, I was home.