Day 7 - Shimanami Kaido

We started off the second day clean and refreshed and honestly still really tired. We didn't have a chance to do laundry at the new place and figured it wasn't necessary as we were still staring down another 20 miles and would just get sweaty anyway. The hotel served us breakfast at 8am (we slept in till 7) at their indoor/outdoor cafe area and it was a completely clear day. Thank god. Breakfast was fantastic and I got to have tea with cream and sugar. We watched the water and it was incredibly peaceful until a few osprey started trying to hunt the baby's of what I can only imagine was a widgeon or a duck in the water. It was a rather more exciting breakfast entertainment than I had hoped for and they just kept going back. I honestly couldn't tell you if they got one or not they were so far out the babies barely looked like specks on the water but it was at least highly engaging. The momma bird kept jumping and snapping at the approaching osprey. The whole thing was wild to watch.

We sat and enjoyed breakfast for a while and then started back on our quest. We slept on Omishima island near to the Tatara bridge for anyone who's got this on google maps. We then headed south and just barely crossed over Hakatacho Ikata island on the south western side. The next island is Oshima and we were given the option of the scenic island explorer route or the direct route that went through the island. We were making such great time that we decided to go island explorer and were rewarded with a route made up almost entirely of sea side views.

We stopped at one point at a vending machine by the side of the road that happened to be next to this lady's house and she had a bunch of cats. Most of them were a bit wary of us and backed away but one actually came running towards us and was dead set on getting pets. This little guy couldn't have been more than 6 or 7 pounds, he was tiny but was rubbing up against our ankles and purring up a storm. At one point he was rolling around on his back. It was one of the cutest and friendliest cats I think I've ever met. I pulled a stem of grass with seeds on the ends and ran it around and he went wild for it. It was so cute. His owner (a little old lady) came out after a bit to fetch him and we chatted just briefly again using my phone mostly as a translator and she told us his name was something that sounded like Chacha. She carried him off with her hands under his armpits and him dangling and he didn't even mind.

We hit one big hill and I had to take quite a few breaks but other than that it was super smooth sailing the rest of the day. We made it to the last bridge in no time which is this super long bridge that goes 4.1 km or 2.5 miles that goes from Oshima to Imabari. Imabari is the town we dropped our bikes off at but is on the island Shikoku. But Shikoku is huge and could basically be considered main land. We turned in our bikes, and headed to our airbnb for the night. We honestly just sat around after that, nothing really to report. We were both exhausted from two days of biking and just wanted to relax.

We had dinner at a little local place about a block from our airbnb and Sam had okonomiyaki and I had fried udon noodles with egg.