Shikoku Bike Tour - Part 8
Shimanto → Tosa · Kochi
We started the morning with a slow breakfast at a tiny cafe near the hotel, all lace curtains and warm light, more of a retro Western diner than anything I’d expect to find on this stretch of coast. Toast, a little salad, a bowl of miso soup on the side. It felt like a good way to ease into a day I didn’t have firm plans for yet.
The route took us back toward the ocean and it turned into one of those perfect blue-sky days. Coming around a bend I caught sight of a proper surf beach, a handful of guys out paddling and catching gentle rollers just off the point. It looked like a great little break, and for a second I really wanted to find a board and paddle out myself. I hadn’t surfed since a trip years ago, which is objectively ridiculous given I live in California now and somehow never go. Vacation surfing only, apparently.
I peeled off my planned route to hug the coast a little longer instead of cutting inland, and it paid off almost immediately. I rolled past a little shack of a restaurant that had some fresh bonito. I ordered a set with half seared and half raw, plus a plate of seafood tempura. It was the fuel I needed after a good morning of cycling. I finished the meal with a coffee before heading off on the bike again.
There was a little harbor beside the restaurant with fishing boats tucked up against the hills, and a white, impossibly fluffy cat working the mooring lines like it owned the place.
The detour meant I now had to get back onto the actual route, which involved climbing back over a mountain pass through a sunlit cedar forest to rejoin the coast road. I texted Tom to say I probably wasn’t going to make it to catch up with him before the hotel, since I’d eaten into a good chunk of the afternoon on my little seafood diversion.
I made it into Tosa a little later than planned, but Tom was having a good time and had already checked in and used the outdoor onsen. I cleaned up and then we grabbed dinner and some beers before heading to bed.
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