Second day of our bicycle journey. The weather was looking a bit unstable, but we would focus on our first goal of getting to the seafood barbecue place for lunch!
Omishima (大三島)
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- Breakfast at the guesthouse Karibu (カリブ). It’s seafood-themed again with the stonefish soup particularly delicious.
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- Outside the guesthouse where we parked our bikes.
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- Riding back to the Tatara Bridge (多々羅大橋) where we came from yesterday.
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- A small market in the highway service area next to the bridge. Lots of mandarin on sale from local farms.
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- Sun peeking through the clouds. There was the occasional drizzle, but still mostly dry.
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- Omishima Bridge (大三島橋)
Hakatashima (伯方島)
We went past this island only on its southwest side, stopping at the service area which has a fairly large souvenir shop and a park next to the coast. We were lucky that while we were browsing inside it suddenly started to rain. Thankfully it was short, and we were able to continue without much delay. The weather can really make or break such a cycling trip!
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- Oshima Bridge (大島大橋) seen from the Hakatashima service area park.
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- A place selling various local snacks. This mandarin cyclist mascot started appearing in places as we got closer to the Shikoku side to the south. Mandarin is a speciality of the Ehime prefecture (愛媛県) in Shikoku.
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- Ice cream with Hakata salt (伯方の塩).
Oshima (大島)
The last island on the route. While most of it had been pretty flat, here we had to get over a long incline (unfortunately no photo was taken of that, must have been too focused on the climb!). But after that would be our lunch spot, and the spectacular Kurushima Bridge (来島大橋).
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- Looking back at the Oshima Bridge just crossed.
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- A rare sight – we hardly came across any fellow cyclists on our journey.
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- Over the hill. Could see the final bridge now. But lunch first!
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- Yoshiumiikiikikan (よしうみいきいき館) service area.
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- It’s a large place. Tour buses come here as well. Today there was a school group.
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- Pick your seafood…
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- Barbecue
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- After lunch, moving on to the last one, Kurushima Bridge (来島大島).
Imabari (今治)
We finally arrived at Shikoku. There are a few good spots for enjoying the view of the Kurushima Bridge, but after that the cycle route rejoins the busy main road, running along side it for a somewhat dull 6 km before the final destination at Imabari Station.
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- From the Kurushima Strait Observation Deck (来島海峡展望館) in the Itoyama Park (糸山公園). There’s also a small museum about the construction of the bridge.
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- Itoyama Sunrise (糸山サンライズ) is a large bicycle shop and also the main rental centre on the Imabari side. This is quite far away from the Imabari train station though and not well served by public transport.
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- The rental spot near Imabari Station was not particularly easy to find! We bid farewell to our rental bicycles here.
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- Imabari JR station.
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- We couldn’t find much food option in Imabari, so settled for a chain restaurant.
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- Imabari is a major ship-building town.
Imabari also has a castle and is famous for high quality towels (all Japanese know about “Imabari Towel”). There’s also a museum for it for the interested. For us we would only be staying for the night and departing early next day.