We left the Super Hotel well rested and ready for the road and we sure we were really ready by pigging out at the breakfast buffet before leaving. The road north was mostly off the route 10 and was quite quiet but near Lizuka we spent sometime on the 201 which wasn’t too pleasant. It included two long tunnels, one which was over 1.5 kilometers in length and had a few short sections with almost no shoulder or sidewalk. This took us to Tagawa where we had a lovely meal at an Indian restaurant before finding a small shrine where we could rest until the heat of the day had past.

I had my first accident of the trip today. While looking at the map on my phone I rode into a lamp post. I got a few minor scrapes and bruises but the only real injury was to my pride.

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Then, mostly by mistake we ended up on a quiet country road which had quite a few climbs, some of which we did more than once after having to backtrack when we got the sections where we couldn’t get back on to route 201 because of bicycles not being allowed on those sections. Eventually, after a lovely downhill, we joined the 201 not too far out of the outskirts of Fukuoka and made our way to a lovely park where we spent our last night in a rose garden. I don’t think that we are ready to leave Japan. Our stay here seems to have been so short and there is so much to see. We have also had to rush through the miles because of the distances we needed to cover to see the essentials but still get to Fukuoka in time for the ferry. I guess that if we were fitter when we arrived in Kyoto this wouldn’t have been such a problem. In the end, getting fitter on the road as left us slightly stretched and in retrospect we should have made more effort into improving our condition before we left South Africa, especially since we knew that we didn’t have much time in Japan.

This would also have meant that we could have spent some time bird watching. We have picked up 19 lifers while here - all common birds but these have all been seen during the course of other activities: - Oriental Reed Warbler - Mandarin Duck - Eurasian Skylark - Eastern Spot-billed Duck - Grey-capped Greenfinch - Asian House Martin - Meadow Bunting - Japanese Bush Warbler - Brown-eared Bulbul - Blue Rock Thrush - Japanese Wagtail - Japanese Tit - Japanese Cormorant - Varied Tit - White-cheeked Starling - Oriental Turtle Dove - Grey-tailed Tattler - Grey-headed Lapwing - Japanese White-eye

I think this might not be our last visit to Japan.