Andrew Deane
Speeding Up
- Aug 17, 2007
- 121
- 0
Just curious -
Has anyone heard of anybody who's cycled around the entire coast of all four of Japan's main islands in a single trip? Or even one of them? Or each of them in four separate trips?
Many people cycle from Cape Sata to Cape Soya (BEE, the abominable Ms. Josie Dew, et al.), but has anyone followed a coastal road all the way round one of the main islands?
Two or three worthy & witty wackos have walked from head to toe (Alan Booth's The Roads to Sata & Craig MacLachlan's Four Pairs of Boots - required reading!). There's an 88 temple pilgrimage that roughly follows the coast of Shikoku (MacLachlan again - Tales of a Summer Henro).
And what sort of distance are we talking about around the coast? It's over 3,000 km from cape to cape, so I'm guessing we're looking at roughly 7,000 to 10,000, mostly done on rural, winding roads, empty roads. But, what an adventure it'd be!
It's a crazy dream of a man still trapped at work, staring out into a dark rainy night dreaming of long-gone youth... Reminds me of an old poem:
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains...
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought...
Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Sorry, bit of a long quotation from Tennyson, I know.
Anyway, I'd be interested in any recommended "winter" reading on cycling in Japan, and interested to hear TCC members' epic tales!
Perhaps we could start an armchair club of would-be coastal migrants... And yes, I realize that Ulysses was an old, heroic man and I'm only a middle-aged teacher, but it's cheaper than buying a little red corvette...
Has anyone heard of anybody who's cycled around the entire coast of all four of Japan's main islands in a single trip? Or even one of them? Or each of them in four separate trips?
Many people cycle from Cape Sata to Cape Soya (BEE, the abominable Ms. Josie Dew, et al.), but has anyone followed a coastal road all the way round one of the main islands?
Two or three worthy & witty wackos have walked from head to toe (Alan Booth's The Roads to Sata & Craig MacLachlan's Four Pairs of Boots - required reading!). There's an 88 temple pilgrimage that roughly follows the coast of Shikoku (MacLachlan again - Tales of a Summer Henro).
And what sort of distance are we talking about around the coast? It's over 3,000 km from cape to cape, so I'm guessing we're looking at roughly 7,000 to 10,000, mostly done on rural, winding roads, empty roads. But, what an adventure it'd be!
It's a crazy dream of a man still trapped at work, staring out into a dark rainy night dreaming of long-gone youth... Reminds me of an old poem:
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains...
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought...
Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Sorry, bit of a long quotation from Tennyson, I know.
Anyway, I'd be interested in any recommended "winter" reading on cycling in Japan, and interested to hear TCC members' epic tales!
Perhaps we could start an armchair club of would-be coastal migrants... And yes, I realize that Ulysses was an old, heroic man and I'm only a middle-aged teacher, but it's cheaper than buying a little red corvette...