We had a fine breakfast and conversation with Kawahara's wife who spoke English. We started riding just after 8:00am and had a look around Upper Mizukiso before starting our route along the north shore of  Ichifusu Dam Lake. The main road going north to Shiiba was closed and Kawahara assured me that the alternate road of the #142 was open, but he said it was a "dangerous road". I took that to mean that it was single lane in places, and we found that to be true. On the west side of the lake, our route met up with #142 and we started on  a steady uphill ride. Initially, the #142 followed the Kuma River and a few settlements, with very light traffic. Once the #142 left the Kuma River, traffic dried up and the road made a seemingly endless climb to a pass at 1100m, marking the boundary of the Kumamoto and Miyazaki prefectures.

The north side of the pass was particularly good riding as it offered a gradual descent and followed the Fudono River. We eventually encountered very light traffic after passing a number of hamlets and we reached a T-Junction at the Mimi River. The plan was to ride upriver 3 kms and to double back on the small road on the north shore. It was beautiful, however, we encountered a washout with an active construction site with the crew on lunch break. Rather than carry on, we reversed and went back to the #142.  We followed the gorgeous #142 all along the Hyugashiiba Lake into Shiiba. There were a few cars travelling in the opposite direction. Our detour cost us the opportunity to eat a restaurant lunch as we reached Shiiba just before 2:00pm, and the few options had already closed. The fresh nigiri sushi, that we purchased at the Co-op supermarket, was an excellent alternative. 

We had a look around the Shiiba Shrine before checking in the nearby Tsurutomi Yashiki Ryokan. We met our first foreign tourists since the Miyazaki coast; they were a British couple touring by car. The ryokan was a simple traditional inn, offering sleeping on tatami floors. The toilets and large baths were shared. Meals were included in the daily rate. We assumed that dinner would be served downstairs in the dining room, so we were surprised by a knock on the door at 5:00pm with our dinner delivered to our room. Sheila had already made the beds and we cleared the table for the dinner offering. All the small dishes and trays meant several trips up and down the stairs for the staff and the ryokan manager came up to guide us through some of the subtleties of the meal. It was all quite fun. The day's ride was 69km with 1300m of ascent.

Breakfast at Tsurutomi Yashiki Ryokan was served downstairs in the small restaurant area. When it came to paying the bill, the manager insisted that I first go to the tourist office a short distance away. I wanted to settle up, but she was insistent that I visit the tourist office. Off I went on my bike to the tourist office where they were expecting me. A woman at the office gave me  all kinds of coupons, that turned out to be worth ¥5,500 that I was to apply towards the lodging bill. It was all smiles, when I returned to the hotel reception and the ¥17,000 bill went  down to¥11,500. Thank-you very much Tourism Shiiba.

The #142 was relatively quiet and soon after we turned north on the #265, following up the Tone River. I made a steep climb to visit the Tonegawa Shrine and its massive companion cedar tree. At the top end of the Tone River, we reached the mouth of the 2.8km Kunimi Tunnel. The tunnel workaround road over Kunimi Pass was closed. However, traffic was very light and we pressed on through the tunnel. Over the 3 kms, just one vehicle passed us, a logging truck. We could hear it coming from a long way off and we pulled off the road to allow it by. The driver had seen our flashing lights and was moving slowly, and seemed to appreciate that we had moved aside. 

On the north side of the tunnel, we rejoined our old friend the Gokase River. We had followed the lower Gokase into Nobeoka in 2024. We passed the turn for the Gokase Ski Resort before hitting side roads and onto the atmospheric Gion Shrine. The #202 was closed for repairs, so we carried on past our accommodation in Mamihara and rode the sometimes busy #218 towards Gokase Town. We lunched at a the Gokase Specialty Centre before reaching the A-Coop Supermarket in Gokase. We purchased dinner and breakfast supplies, topped off by ice cream bars. We returned along the #218 to Mamihara; alternate small roads would have been torturous in that convoluted landscape with steep ravines.

Mamihara is a sleepy town. We had a look at the main street and purchased citrus fruit at a small shop before moving into the Omusubi Guesthouse a little before 3:00pm. Our wonderful host, Rei, slipped away from her physiotherapy business across the street and showed us around. She and her partner moved to the town and have purchased old buildings and are revitalizing them, converting them to short and longer stay guest houses. They are part of a movement to move back to rural areas. She was so energetic. Later in the day, a foreign tourist couple arrived and then a trail runner from Kumamoto, who carries the same name. It turned out that he spoke good English and we had nice evening with him. We rode 55km with 900m of ascent.

We had a ferry to catch from Kumamoto Port so we got another early start. I was somewhat surprised to find moderate traffic on #218 at 7:30am, Saturday. The landscape is twisted so the main road is the best alternative, but we still kept to small parallel roads as much as possible to reach Yamato before 9:00am. We stopped in at the Tsujunkyo stone  bridge and we admired some of elaborate float animals that we encountered in open garages through the town.

We picked up the #219 at the western edge of town and rode through active agricultural lands, then plunging 15 kms down to the Upper Midorikawa River. Along the way, the road numbers changed (#219, #321,#220) as we went through small agricultural pockets. There was no traffic. When we reached the outskirts of Kosa, we left the small roads briefly for a lunch stop at Ramen Yamato. The humble appearance hid magnificent bowls of Champon noodle soups. It was the best Champon soup of our trip. We stayed with the quiet Midorikawa River roads almost to the sea before cutting north through flat agricultural lands to reach the Kumamoto Port on a warm afternoon. We took a busy fast car ferry across to Shimabara for a 1 km ride to Hotel Seaside Shimabara. We were settled in room #310 by 3:45pm.  The hotel had a couple of onsens and later we walked to the Taj Mahal restaurant for dinner.  That day, we rode 87km with 350m of ascent.

We took our time in the morning, enjoyed the Seaside Shimabara breakfast and waited for the light rain to stop which it did. However, the clouds didn't clear and later in the day we rode in fine drizzle. We kept to smaller roads in Shimabara but after 6km, joined the main road, #57. The Sunday tourist traffic was light, but it was a steady uphill. When we reached 750m, we turned off onto the one-way #389, paid a toll and continued riding to some viewpoints. The clouds obscured views at the high points of around 1050m. We carried on and descended in light clouds to Unzen.

The town features all kinds of volcanic vapours and somewhat of a tourist vibe. We even spotted a number of foreigners. We ate a couple of burgers served by a food truck and then dropped our panniers off at our hotel. The receptionists expressed their admiration for our ride across Kyushu. We rode and walked through fumaroles and then  checked into the Unzen Fukudaya Hotel.  We had a good looking room and we had the onsens to ourselves in the mid-afternoon. Our room rate excluded meals, so we had dinner at a simple restaurant in town, the Bunnoji. Although the restaurant receives high Google ratings, we found it rather middle of the road. A couple of ice creams from the convenience store kept the troops happy before riding back to our splendid hotel. The day's riding distance was a short 32km, but the ascent of 1100m was noticeable.

We had soaks in the hotel onsens before getting underway. We started the day with a 700m descent to sea level. We followed the #128 but never deployed the option of a smaller road because traffic was very light and the descent was smooth. Our route then followed the sea wall and then a series of small roads that kept us off the main road. After Uki, we ascended into agricultural lands, primarily potato fields. Although potatoes and sweet potatoes are available at most Japanese supermarkets, we figured those spuds were destined for souchu distilleries. The ups and downs were quite sharp so bottoming out at Yuinohama Beach was most welcome.

We had a little further to go, reaching slightly busy Higashinagasaki around 1:00pm.  We dropped in at an Aeon supermarket to buy a few things. The Terada-ya restaurant caught our attention and we enjoyed udon noodles for lunch. We still had another 15 kms to reach our accommodation. After passing by the Nagasaki Aquarium, we peddled through a few more hills on #34 before reaching Mogi Town.  The S Mart supermarket turned out to be better than expected and we bought a few more items for our dinner and breakfast. The BuraBura-Nagasaki House accommodation was a little different than most but it offered a fine room and excellent kitchen facilities. A Japanese family were the only other guests that night. Our ride was 63km with 600m of ascent.

The original plan was to ride the Nagasaki Peninsula, but with a forecast of a rainy day, we shifted to Plan B. We rode the more direct route into Nagasaki City and we hoped to avoid most of the rain. The #324 had moderate traffic, but the tiny parallel road had virtually no traffic as we ascended 150m to the city. The uphill continued through city streets, and that yielded some nice city views. We descended some very steep sections to reach Chinatown. We went to our accommodation , the Candeo Hotel, and dropped off our bags. 

It was off to a Joyfull restaurant for a relaxing second breakfast served by a robot. We took our time, had a look around part of the old town and headed for the Amu Plaza as a refuge from the light rain. The plaza featured mostly high end stores and didn't hold much interest except for the robot security guards. We dragged out a tempura lunch on the Hamamachiten shopping street before checking in. It was nice to sit in the outside onsens in the rain that afternoon. The reception had suggested leaving our bikes in a nearby car park, but we didn't see any other bicycles there. Nagasaki is a hilly city and unlike most other Japanese cities, it does not have much of a bicycle culture. We decided to bring our bikes to our room. The hotel reception is located on the 11th floor, while our room was on the 4th floor and we didn't see the need to ask for permission.  We had dinner at a steak house. It was a rain shortened ride to the hotel from Mogi Town of 11km with 200m of ascent

Although it had rained overnight, our bikes were nice and dry in the room. We gave them the day off and rode the tram to the Atomic Bomb Museum. The museum opens at 8:30am and we were in there before 9:00am. It was surprisingly busy. There were some foreign tourists, but mostly Japanese school kids. The museum is not what you would call an uplifting experience, and we continued on to the Atomic Bomb Hypocenter (ground zero) and then onto the Peace Park. We returned to the city centre on Tram #1, using our Suica accounts  (loaded on our phones).  Next on the agenda was Dejima, an impressive reproduction of the Dutch trading enclave. 

That pretty well wore us out, so we enjoyed sitting down in a booth, pushing buttons on a tablet, at a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant. We managed to walk around more but decided not to carry on to the Glover Garden area (British colonial style buildings).  Although Nagasaki is considered to be slightly off the beaten track, our hotel was a hotbed of foreign tourists. Nagasaki gets its share of cruise ships, and we were accustomed to having Japanese towns and cities "to ourselves".  Perhaps it was all the walking, but we were worn out. We hit the hotel onsen at 3:00pm and didn't look back. Dinner in Chinatown rounded out the day for us. 

We left the Candeo at 6:45am for a short 1km ride to the Nagasaki Ferry Terminal and bought our tickets. We boarded the ferry at 7:30am. It was a three hour ferry ride to Fukue, Goto Islands. It wasn't very busy and we had a conversation with Japanese couple from Toyama on board. They passed us a couple of times in their car the following day and waved at us. There were no other foreigners on board and we wouldn't see any foreign tourists for 11 days.