CYCLETHON MEGAJOURNEY | Day 7, 8 & 9 | $470,000 raised! (Patreon)

Hi Guys,

I won't lie — I was actively dreading this day more than most: 90 kilometres across Kansai, through the mega cities of Kobe and Osaka. After a thoroughly pleasant day cycling with PewDiePie to Himeji, today was going to be an onslaught of cycling, heatstroke, sun, and mountains.

While I love Kobe as a city to explore, I'd never wanted to cycle across it given the fact Kobe is built into the side of a mountain — a mountain I knew we would have to partially ascend to get around. And ascend we did. Cycling through a city is my least favourite thing: constant traffic lights, dodging cars and traffic. Every lorry feels like it's designed to kill you, with exhaust plumes blowing air into your mouth as you cycle. There's nothing fun about it.

Fortunately, in the latter half of our cycle, as we reached Osaka, we came across a fellow cyclist by the name of Toro. When he asked where we were going and we replied Osaka Station, it turned out that was also his destination and he kindly escorted us through the chaos of Osaka, safely to our end point. American Pete was graciously waiting for us on the steps, at the end of the first half of our cycle, injecting us with a much-needed morale boost for the rest of our journey.

Day 8

A day I had been looking forward to, as our shortest day of cycling at just 35 kilometres across Osaka to Nara. And it couldn't have started any better than it did with a visit to a huge pizza restaurant run by Alex Hughes, a wonderful chap that Ian had met on an airplane to London. My God, it was some of the finest pizza I've had in years. Powered on by pizza, we plowed into the mountains that reside between Osaka and Nara — a not so enjoyable aspect of the journey. However, our reward at the end was, of course, the cheeky Nara deer resting in the park. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any crackers. That wasn't so good. Luckily for us, some passersby took pity on us and gave us their crackers.

Day 9

If the stretch from Himeji to Osaka was the longest day, and Osaka to Nara was the shortest day, then the journey from Nara to Mie Prefecture was indeed the most gruelling day as we ascended a 600 metre mountain — I say mountain, but it was more of a mountain range — to get across over to Mie. It was nothing short of painful.

At one point, we had to walk our bikes up the mountainside and even that was incredibly difficult, such was the verticality of the mountainside. And yet, surprisingly, despite the immeasurable pain we experienced in the first two hours of our journey, as we cycled down the mountainside into the prefecture of Mie and the land of Iga, once home to the Iga Ninjas, we were rewarded with incredible cherry blossoms, hidden hamlet towns, rivers, streams, springs — nothing short of stunning, the closest thing yet I've had to reliving Ghost of Tsushima, the video game.

Somehow it was fitting that the most brutal day eventually rewarded us with the best views of the trip so far. And as an added bonus, halfway through the day, Natsuki joined us, having traveled all the way from Yamagata to be with us.

Everyone on the team was terrified of Natsuki cycling. However, he pulled through, and ironically, despite my fear of Natsuki falling off, it turned out I was the one to fall off the bicycle myself, stupidly while trying to film a corner with my camera and holding onto my bike with one hand. My front tyre hit Connor's back tyre, and off I went, tumbling into the pavement. Fortunately, a few scratches, cuts, and bruises were all I suffered from the slight mishap, and I remained as determined as ever to power on into the final five days of our epic, endless cycle trip.

A trip that feels like one big, long dream at this point, as each and every day blurs into one.

Thank you guys for continuing to give what you can. Your comments, donations and support are spurring us forward as we head onwards into Nagoya.

Chris

P.S. Keep your eyes peeled for more announcements, coming soon, about the Abroad in Japan book…