Thursday 6^th April 2017

Today’s proposed route of 215kms is considered a very long drive by Japanese standards. We bypassed the huge city of Osaka then on to Kobe via toll roads.

From Kobe across to Takamatsu we crossed a narrow island via two very spectacular suspension bridges. The first one, the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge (Pearl Bridge) is 3.9kms in length and can sway up to seven metres sideways in high winds. I don’t know whether it swayed whilst we were crossing but the wind buffeted us the whole way and had to hang on to everything loose in case it blew away. The Onaruto at the other end is 876 metres.

We arrived in Takamatsu, a port city, about 1pm and went straight to the ferry terminal to see if we could purchase tickets for the car ferry to go to the Naoshima Island tomorrow. This small island, about 5kms long, in the Seto Inland Sea is famous for its art installations.

The counter was closed but obtained sufficient information to come back in the morning as pre-booking for a sailing is not required at this time of year (mustn’t be any cherry trees over there!).

Takamatsu is a small city (population about 450,000) and it has huge shopping malls and an amazing number of eating places. Like many other cities we’ve been, bike riding is very common but not on the roads. Footpaths are shared with bicycles.

One of the strange things we’ve noticed is that many dog owners take their dogs for strolls in “dog prams”. At first we thought they were small baby prams until we noticed that they contained dogs, not babies!

We found an interesting place for dinner, a small restaurant run by women. It was the usual bench type affair with seating for sixteen. The chef sat on the floor in the middle of the rectangular seating with a concrete lined pit surrounded by timber beams in front of her. The BBQ was fired by coal. Everything was cooked as it was ordered. Despite Phil’s misgivings about a woman in charge of a BBQ, the food was delicious.