Trip Report: Shimanami Kaido, Tateyama-Kurobe Alpine Route, Shirakawa-go

Hi all. I’m back from two weeks in Japan (mid-late May) and rather than do a full trip report, I wanted to cover the bits that I was most nervous about / struggled to find complete info about. Apologies about formatting, I’m on mobile because my laptop decided dying was a good welcome home gift.

###Shimanami Kaido – over 2 days
My partner wanted to do this. He’s very active and does cycle casually to work. Before this year I’m not sure I’d touched a bike in maybe a decade. We’re both late 20s. I’m not super fit but not wildly unfit either – I play some sport but wouldn’t really describe myself as athletic.

We decided to start from Onomichi, cycle to Omishima on day 1 and then push to Imabari on day 2 to arrive before lunch so we could get a train to the ryokan we had booked (near Kyoto).

**Booking:** we did this easily through the Shimanami Kaido website. I got an email saying they’d accepted my reservation but no other follow-up. You pay cash when you pick up the bikes. We each were given a road bike with 24 gears. We returned them in Imabari no problems.

**The bikes:** we had no issues with them, but as other people have said the seats leave something to be desired. My butt hurt for about 2 days after, but it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. If you don’t want a sore butt, bring bike shorts or a seat cover.

**Baggage:** we each had a small backpack (just a normal backpack nothing special). We also had a small suitcase. We posted this via Yamato transport to our ryokan, using the 7-11 in Onomichi before we left. It cost about 1500¥ I think, less than the Yamato website has quoted me. I filled out the postage form in English and it got there no problem!

**The cycle path:** some people had reported having trouble following the blue line. This was NOT my experience, it was extremely easy to follow. There were one or two turns that came on you quickly but they were sign posted. We didn’t get lost even when we went off the path cause the locals can obviously see you have a bike and will happily point you back in the right direction. We also had two maps that we found at the ferry terminal on Onomichi/Mukaishima which were fully in English.

**The hills:** according to the signs, the average hill up to the bridges is 3%. (I don’t know what that number really means tho.) Other than those and one 5% hill on Oshima, the main route is totally flat. We also did a bit of the “island explorer” on Innoshima which was also flat at it goes around the coast. The hills were very manageable for me using a low gear – I only stopped and walked twice (once on day 1 and the second time on the Oshima hill). Though I WAS slow and my partner met me at the top each time. Going back downhill on the other side was always a really fun reward for making it! Both days we EASILY finished our route by around 1pm.

**Accom:** we stayed at ILINK hostel on Omishima. It was great, heaps of space and storage for bikes. Finding food was a little more challenging, everywhere seemed to be closed.

**Overall:** I highly recommend doing this. If you’re not sure about your fitness, split it up over a few days. Note that if you start cycling too early in the morning a lot of the island attractions won’t be open yet, so you might want to take it slower than we did. But I enjoyed cycling along by the water much more than I expected. Reward yourself with a ryokan/onsen after, it feels amazing.

Last point: if you can, I would recommend starting in Imabari, because the 7kms or so through Imabari are… Not as pretty. You’re just cycling on normal town streets there, so it was an anticlimactic finish. Finishing in Onomichi would have been nicer.

###Tateyama-Kurobe
We booked a through ticket between Dentetsu Toyama and Ogizawa, and the express bus to Nagano. I was a bit confused cause the booking email still said “pick up tickets in Tateyama”, even though we booked from Dentetsu Toyama. But there was a ticket dispenser at Dentetsu Toyama as well, where you can scan your booking QR code and it will print the ticket you need to use on the route (and our bus tickets too). So that was easier than I expected!

We wanted to do walks at Midagahara. The staff warned us they were still covered in snow, but we were happy to walk on snow. What the staff DIDN’T mention is that the paths are so covered in snow at this time of year that you can’t see them. So we had to give up on that. We did stumble around on the snow for about 40 minutes (staying within sight of the hotel and it was a clear day) anyway and that was pretty fun. But yeah – getting wet feet wasn’t the issue. We just couldn’t see the path at all!

Otherwise, the trip was lovely with the snow still covering everything. The snow wall was awesome but you can’t get too close as it is a road still.

Only other comment is that the express bus isn’t really that express. It stopped at about 5 or 6 random places that wasn’t on the Alpine route map (and no one got on or off). It still took the time stated on the ticket (about 1 hr 50) but only cause it went about 80km/hr max which felt slooooow. Also, there are no toilets on the bus.

###Shirakawa-go
We pre-booked a bus from Shin-Takaoka which arrived no issues (despite the station being literally deserted besides us which made me wonder if we were in the right place haha). No toilets on that bus either but it was a smooth ride.

We paid 600¥ each to go in the Gassho-Zukkuri Minkaen open air museum which was definitely worth it, you get to see about 20 buildings and can go into 4 of them. Two you even get to go up to the 3rd level! Definitely worth the money. Not all the signs inside the houses have English though, but the building labels outside do have English.

We didn’t pay to go into anything else, but had a good time wandering around the village and climbing up to the viewpoint. Did find it a bit weird that the “best” photo spot had been claimed by a photo business and they pushed you to either side unless you wanted to pay, but the photo spot you’re able to use was just was good so… It was just kinda bizarre.

We booked the bus back to Toyama (online via the Nobu bus website) while waiting, since we didn’t know in advance what time we’d want to return. I stupidly booked the wrong day, which caused some confusion when the bus arrived – but thankfully I was able to immediately go into the bus station and pay cash for tickets on that bus before it left. I cancelled my online ticket and got a refund (less a 200¥ fee) which processed immediately. Phew!

###Other learnings
– Google maps can’t be trusted when it comes to what restaurants are open. Several times we arrived to “open” places and found them shut.
– Google lens can’t really cope with vertical writing, unfortunately. But we managed well enough!

Hopefully this helps someone.