March 2023
EAST IZU
Izu is another popular resort area in Kanto. In Spring, there are many people come here to watch the Sakura trees along the river.
On the way to East Izu, you must pass Odawara. It is a good place for eating seafoods.
Although the traffic at the east side is heavier due to more restaurants, hotels and shops, there are also many onsen and parks. It is always hilly in Izu, but riding along the sea is so pleasant. Also, the uphill and downhill makes it more fun.
One of my favorite is Maratsuru National Park. Although it is not so well-known. It is a place worth visit. It is a little distance away from the main road. On the way, you can find some seafood restaurants, fish shops and fisherman ports. At the entrance, there is a beautiful beach where I ate my late lunch, yummy fishcakes bought from a nearby fish shop. It was so quiet and nice. Then it takes some uphill into the woods, but once you arrive the parking lot and visitor center, there is a nice place to sit and relax. Walking down the stairs, there is a good spot to see sunrise.
At East Izu, I passed so many nice parks, such as Yugawara Seaside Park, Atami Sun Beach, Nagahama Seaside Park, Nagisa Park etc. Most of them open 24 hours, free to enter and spend a relaxing time next to the sea. I even camped in one of them.
Although the scenery at East Izu is amazing, the uphill and downhill gradually worn me out. After pass through the popular Kawaza Sakura area, I rested my exhausted body in a quiet guesthouse near Shirahama.
CENTRAL IZU
Apart from Sakura, Spring is also the season for Canola flowers to blossom. Another time when we walked along the river from Kawazu. It was full of yellow Canola flowers.
From Shirahama, I rode along route 414 up to Izu station. There were almost 800m of continuous uphill on busy crowded roads and in the mountain. It was very tough, but my most overhelming experience was climbing up the Kawazu nanadaru loop. It is a very unique bridge built to overcome 45m of height difference of roads. As attractive as it was surrounded by Sakura, I was so worried that I couldn’t paddle through it.
On top of Amagisan, there is a popular sight-seeing spot called the Old Amagi Tunnel. It is only 445.5m long, but built in 1905, at altitude of over 700m. It was built by stones and beautifully light up inside.
After long chilling steep downhill from top of Amagisan, I quickily came to Izu town. I found a local shop selling homemade and warm grilled yomogi mochi. It was like heaven!
There is also a very nice trekking route along Kawazu Seven Waterfalls. Not only you can enjoy different kinds of waterfalls, the irregular hexagonal volcanic prism walls along the riverbed. Also, some restaurants there selling traditional soba with local mushrooms and fresh wasabi! This area produces fresh wasabi.
After walking up some long stairs, we did some hiking at central Izu. It was very pleasant walking in the woods. Athough there are not so many toilets and facilities, there are also very few people hiking in Izu area, so it was very peaceful.
We even walked along the old route 414. It is too narrow and some places collapsed, almost no longer being used. It is hard to believe that it was once a national road.
Since some routes collapsed due to earthquakes few years ago, it was quite narrow and dangerous to walk. We were lucky to have found a large place of flat empty land to camp. It was middle of nowhere, not even shown on Google map. Perhaps there used to be a temple. At night, we could hear deers calling each other softly around us. The moon was so bright that I didn’t even need a headlamp to walk outside of the tent. It was like a different world.
We saw Wasabi farms on the rivers, and yellow wild flowers growing crazily along the way. The green moss that we love was everywhere. Finally, we got out of mountain to take a bus to Izu town.
Shuzenji Onsen area is very popular to tourists. Although we could only find a few onsen there, there were several beautiful walking routes, an ume garden and a bamboo wood.
WEST IZU
The other time, we rode from Shuzenji to west Izu. We expected hilly ride, but we did not expect heavy rain. In fact, it rained all day. It was romantic to see fog in the mountain, but we missed out much of the beautiful sea view.
Someday, we’ll return to visit Koganesaki Park and Dogashima on a sunny day!
Fortunately, next day we had much better weather. We visited Muroiwadou in the morning. Its entrance is unobvious long steep stairs from the road. It was a place to produce Izu stone. Also, the underground water leads to clear ponds inside the cave, looked like Indiana Jones movie.
We continued to ride south towards the southmost tip of Izu, Irozaki Ocean Park. On the way, the beautiful beaches and seaview continued to impress us. Although we could hardly find any restaurants and convenience stores. I found a private restaurant which served very tender deer and wild boar meat. Also, when we rode further, we surprisingly saw a Nepalese restaurant. There were also some expensive campsites.
SOUTH IZU
We finally arrived Irozaki Ocean Park. There was long stairs walking down to a temple built on the cliff, surrounded by impressive rocky cliffs.
Before we arrived our guesthouse in the popular Shimoda town, we passed by a sea of Canola flower fields. It was unbelievably extensive and tall. What a great surprise. I cannot find much description from the internet. It seems to be just a Canola flower field made out of goodwill of local farmers.
Shimoda has an interesting history which we did not know. We actually had dinner at the Perry road!
Next morning, we visited the last destination of this trip, Ebisujima and Tsumekisaki.
Ebisujima is like a tiny island connected to the mainland with a short bridge, but it was full of interesting volcanic rocks and green mosses. It looks like a different world.
We also found a hiden white sand beach, which was so picture-perfect!
Sitting on the hill top of Tsumekisaki to drink tea and eat snacks in front of the beautiful sea, completed our trip!
