Our final bit of moving around before we settled in Hiroshima for four weeks was to travel from Imabari, via Okunoshima and stay a night in Onomichi. This would take us from Shikoku back to the mainland of Japan (Honshu). Even though Shikoku is a seperate island, it's actually connected to Honshu a several points with enormous bridges. From Imabari, the Shimanami Kaido is a bridge/road that passes over six small islands in the Seto Inland Sea and finishes in Onomichi.
I've added it as a little bridge icon on the map above, but it's a bit hard to appreciate it from that. None of the smaller islands that it crosses over are shown at all. It's a popular cycling route and I can see why. The view as you drive over the bridges is stunning.
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| A better shot of the islands and the roads and bridges connecting them from here. |
We will get to that in a bit, but first, it's always best to drive with four working wheels on your car.
We had the unhappy discovery as we packed up to leave Imabari that morning that the front passenger wheel was flat. We didn't noticed it until Steve had just driven to the end of our very narrow street; he then had the unpleasant task of trying to reverse back into an open spot so we could assess the situation. We figured replacing it would be straightforward enough, but then unpacked the boot to find there was no spare.
One of the neighbours came out of the house immediately offered to help by visiting the car shop across the road to raise assistance for us. It was 8:30 on a Saturday morning though, so they were understandably, not open yet. She assured me that someone would come and offered local phone numbers of places I could call. Or, I would have been able to call with a local phone. Not so much with my Australian mobile. Even with roaming, calls have not yet worked once in our five months here.
The friendly neighbourhood car guy came around and immediately began assisting us by plugging in the tyre re-pump kit that did come with the car, and then running back to his work to get their kit when we realised ours didn't have the hose to actually connect it to the tyre. The wheel pumped up quickly enough, and he stayed with us and througherly checked the wheel for where it was punctured. We found nothing. Such a mystery!
After I told him where we were headed (lots of driving), he advised going to a servo to check the pressure and if we needed to, to get a new wheel there. We were pretty set on getting the new wheel, since we didn't want to risk this one deflating again, even if it seemed to be working fine now. The recommended servo was a 15 min drive, but the helpful car guy was confident we would make it no problems.
Off we went, stopped at the servo and got a new wheel for the car with no troubles. Then our journey continued, over the bridges and islands.
Couldn't get many good photos, but the view was stunning. We were pretty lucky that we didn't have any actual plans for the day that relied on a tight schedule, because the whole flat tyre affair set us back about an hour. We made a brief stop at a park for a snack and a walk around.
The park was a rose garden, so the gift shop was selling rose ice cream, which we, of course, sampled. The girls thought this was better than the olive and soy sauce ice creams that we'd had on Shodoshima. Maybe. When then drove to a ferry terminal, parked the car and caught a ferry across to visit Okunoshima.
This tiny island has a large population of wild rabbits that you can see hopping around and feed. It was also where Japan experimented with developing poisonous gas for warfare, but eventually concluded that it was inhumane and ceased production. There are a few spots on the island of the original army/research base that serve as museums for people to visit. Steve went into the main one while the girls and I enjoyed the bunnies.
So cute! We had some convenience store onigiri that we grabbed for lunch (there was really not much else on the island, so I was glad we picked that up before catching the ferry) and then wandered down to the beach. In the rush of the morning with the car drama, I'd clean forgotten that packing swimmers could be an option, so it was a bit disappointing that we'd left them in the car when the day was so hot and the water was so beautiful and cool.
The girls and I went in up to our knees and it was difficult to tear ourselves away, even from that small relief. We had to catch the ferry back and then continue driving over the bridges and islands to Onomichi. Onomichi is a small port city which is very cute. We stayed the night and then used the morning to explore around.
The first thing the girls and I did was a maneki neko (beckoning cat) painting workshop. It was a cute little thing for the morning (Steve wandered around town), if a bit expensive.
I am glad we did it though, because we have some very cute maneki neko to take home with us. Can you tell who did which cat?
After this, we wandered the Main Street and took the cable car to the top of the mountain for some fun views. The heat had really kicked in though, so we ate our onigiri lunch that I'd packed and then trekked down the mountain.
Saw these lovely furin on the way down.
Then we had about an hour and a half of driving to take our trusty hire car back to Okayama where we picked it up all those weeks ago. In the car for the last two weeks of driving, we'd been listening to an audio book, which we usually do on family travel adventures. This time was Trouble Twisters by Garth Nix and Sean Williams. Rachel had listened to it before, since she enjoyed Garth Nix's Mister Monday series, but it was new for the rest of us. It's definitely written for a younger audience (think 8-10, rather than 10 - 14), but was enjoyable none the less.
Dropping the car back was pretty funny because we were reimbursed for the new tyre that we'd bought. Typically Japan, they reimbursed us in cash. None of us were excited about carrying our heavy suitcases to the station, but we were also relieved that this was one of the last times we'd have to do this.
Next up: Hiroshima!
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