To Kyshu you can either go by ferry or planning a longer trip and drive most of it.
As so often the rain is traveling with us. But anyway, we had a nice time on our road tripping through Kyushu.
As almost whole Japan, Kyushu area as well is easy to reach by train. But you should be aware, that you will always travel with the crowd! Kyushu has a lot of nice, lonely and hidden places, much easier to reach by car. That is why we got stuck in the south, where we started our trip. At the southern end of Kyushu, we found nice waterfalls and hiking spots, where we could stay easily on the parking area with our camper van. So we started close to Miyazaki and drove with several stops to Kagoshima and further to Nagasaki.
We started our trip by driving to Lake Biwa, close to Kyoto, Japan’ largest freshwater lake. Around Moriyama, there are some nice, stony beaches with barbecue areas, where you can spend your day.
After spending a night on a hidden parking area close to the Okayama port (not a good idea – because I got noisy due to the fisher boats at 5:00), we travelled one day to Naoshima island, to visit the Art projects. If you are somehow interested in Art I would recommend to go there! We brought our own bikes, but you can also rent bikes at the port and do the whole tour of roughly 14km by bike.
And Naoshima Bath house (I♥湯) looks a little bit weird, but Is a nice contrast to other typical Japanese onsen.
The next night we planned to spend on and Auto-Camping site in the North-western area of Honshu. If you search forオートキャンプ on GoogleMaps there are a plenty of camping sites
BUT: due to the coming typhoon all of them were closed, and even more surprising, even some were not opens since years it seemed. So at least it was a good chance to take some pictures of another abandoned place in Japan. And again it felt little bit spooky to enter such a place, where somehow time stood still.
So we had to spend the night once more on a parking space close to the coastline, which was very quite during night time.
Before driving to Fukuoka we wanted to stay on day at the beach and by surprise we found a hidden camping site at the very end of Honshu with a beautiful sunset (うしろはま, Shimonoseki). Due to the typhoon still moving over Japan, we had the whole beach for ourselves and spend 2000Yen for the camping site.
So – next stop Miyazaki. Famous for its beautiful beaches. Honestly, I was a little bit disappointed. Maybe the reason was somehow, that due to the Typhoon a lot of garbage and dirt was washed ashore and the water was more brown than clear.
From a Auto-Camping site, by bike, we visited the small island Aoshima. The whole area is famous for the interesting shapes stones at around the island and shore, shaped like “Wash-boards” – therefore called “the devil/giant wash-board”.
Before getting a sunburn, our trip lead us to Mt. Yufu, close to Bepu. Next to the entrance of the Hike up to the mountain, we found a small parking area to spend the night. Next morning, at 6:00 we started our hike to the two summits. Again I have to say: Hiking in Japan is challenging. If the hike is described as “moderate” be aware it can include short passage, were you have to climb, as well as steep, narrow paths. At the end, and due to a not very accurate map, it took as 6.5 hours for 12km trough the mountains. But the view from the Top was stunning!
Afterwards, thanks to the Lonely planet, we visited a small, mixed bathhouse in Yufuin
The next day the rain catched up. When driving to the mystic morning scene of Shikoku, along the Shimanto River, the rain got so strong, we had to drive along, to get to Osaka in the evening. Anyway, what I saw in Shikoku looked like, Kayaking and hiking can be really nice there. So I’m a little sad to miss the chance to spend more time in that region.
Osaka than was a like getting back to “big-city-reality”. Crowded, hot and noisy as well as completely different to Tokyo. I liked it very much, because as written before the city is a little bit less structured and organized and therefore everything seems to be a little bit more flexible.
Some more highlights we passed on the way: Hanza River, Minami Kyushu Coast, Mt. Aso Area, Oyama Onsen, Mini Island close to Ibusuki, Takachiho Gorge, Futatsu shrine, Lake Ikeda, Kamikawa Otaki Park & waterfall….
Klaus the camper van 