(Nov. 16, 2024)
Shizuoka City is in Kanagawa Prefecture, which stretches over a vast area of 83.1 km from north to south, but only 20% of the city is urban, with the remaining 80% being mountainous and rich in nature. The natural part of Shizuoka deep in the mountains is nicknamed Oku-Shizuoka, or “Oku-Shizu“.
“Oku-Shizu” is filled with beautiful scenery, rivers, lakes and mountains barely touched by civilization, surely there are dams, roads and fields, but not filled with tourists and shops. In fact, you can hardly find a convenience store or parking lot in that area. It is quiet and peaceful. The difficulty to reach there (having to drive at least 1.5 hour in narrow winding mountainous roads, no buses, all the cars are blocked at the entrance) has protected it and kept it well-preserved.
It is rumored to be one of the best place to visit for Autumn leaves in Kanto, so one weekend we decided to leave before daybreak and drove over there. It took us 4-5 hours each way, half of it is continous winding mountainous roads like roller coaster, so I got car sick. Finally we reached the last parking lot, from there we could only entry by either walk or bicycle, yet it was about 28km to our destination, so we brought our bicycles by car.
Basically, we rode along the river, so the roads were supposed to be quite flat, and indeed we were in luck, it was peak time for Autumn leaves, we saw endless Autumn leaves of all kinds of color along the way, which matched perfectly with the torquoise river, and the roads were wide & empty, occasionally small stones and construction sites, but no problem to ride at all. We saw only a few hikers and cyclists on the way.
The whole area was surrounded by the magnificent view of Southern Alps, one of the most popular areas for hikers in Japan. The Southern Alps was also full of multi-colored trees. It looked amazing. We also passed by some suspension bridges across the river. They were just picture-perfect in Autumn time, quite scary but actually safe to cross.
It should be noted that there is no toilet nor shops on the way, so it is better to carry foods, drinks with you. However, many small waterfalls were seen, rainwater flowing down from the Southern Alps, they can be drinking water.
We took too much time sight-seeing on the way, and heard from some cyclists that ahead was steep uphill, so finally we only went halfway (about 17km) and headed back, so it was still a fun place to visit. We may return next Autumn.