Day 14 Hida-Furukawa

Yes - I am way behind in this blog, but sometimes too much else is going on :)

so lets work backwards, because today was soooo beautiful, I just have to share it with you.

My Warmshowers host, Taka, advised me to head south on R41, but then to turn off at R360 and head down the middle.  I wondered why I hadn't planned that, then I realised its got long tunnels on it...  but Taka said that they have good paths and its an easy ride, so how can one ignore such good advice.

As always, it takes ages to get out of the urban sprawl and get off the tricky footpaths and start to feel safe enough to ride on the actual road and to get some speed up...  soon I was passing the inevitable rice paddies with little tractors splashing around in the muddy water, with their fancy little planters on the back that feed the rice seedling down into the mud in such neat and tidy rows..  I have seen rice seedling being planted by hand, but generally its done mechanically.

It did start out wet, but only light rain that cleared away to just mist and then dry at last!  I stopped at a Lawson's and bought some Inari and a egg sandwich, a tin of coffee, but also bought a hot one to go with the apple strudel...  yep, that will do the trick..  and then onto R360...

Well, if you wonder why I like to cycle in Japan, today says it all... sure there were tunnels but they were all OK - but the scenery!!!  beeeeoooootiful!!!  huge mountains on both sides, covered with pine and other bright green leaved trees - so many shade of green and there down in the middle this wild roaring river, crashing over boulders, white water and dark green to light green water...  I passed a couple of hydro dams, but the river didn't seem to be slowed down by them...  I mean all day with this scenery.  as usual I was stopping and starting taking photos and generally enjoying myself totally...

there were also old villages to ride thru and farm areas and occasionally a dog woofed at me, to keep me heading on my way...  magic...
so I will see if I can find any decent photos to post here...  stay tuned!

Then I arrived into Hida-Furukawa - a wonderful old town and with the help of a lady at the local supermarket, I ended up in a beautiful Japanese Inn - had a hot shower and even hotter bath and then headed onto the streets to be amazed at this beautiful old town

This one is for JoW - still not a fan :)