Senaga Island (Dec 25, 2021)
Although COVID-19 is still around us everyday, this winter break we decided to take a cycling trip around Okinawa main island, and visit several small islands around the mainlands. These islands are accessible by bridges!
We planned to cycle around Okinawa mainland (about 500km) in 6 days, and then have a relaxing family trip for another 5 days, staying in an apartment in Naha city. This time, we decided to ditch all the camping stuffs and stayed in accomodations, in order to be lighter and ride faster!
We arrived Okinawa by a short flight (2-3 hrs?) from Haneda to Naha on Christmas day early morning. We had to drag the bicycle bag and panner bags to the airport on early morning, and it was already middle of winter, around 0degC in Tokyo. Thankfully, our family were kind enough to give us a ride. My bike was around 10-11kg, including panner bags, it was 19kg, but actually we can carry up to 30kg by ANA, including the bike, free-of-charge!!
It was so happy to see to the Okinawa island and beautiful sea from the sky. Especially, Okinawa is a lot warmer than Tokyo, about 15-20degC even in December, and we had Okinawa famous character Shisa to welcome us everywhere, even as road blocks!
Our 1st stop was Senaga Island. It is a popular island with just some restaurants and cafes around, but it is only about 5km from the airport, and around 10-15km from Naha city, makes it a popular tourist spot.
We decided to stop by there for before going up north. Unfortunately, it is actually 5km south from airport, so we had to ride extra 10km in order to have lunch there, but anyway, it was nice to see the beautiful color sea, just one street away from the restaurants, and we could even see planes arriving and taking off from afar. There, we had our first Okinawa Soba of this trip! It was most the best Okinawa Soba we ever ate, but the noodles were still so fresh and the soup tasted so good!
Rebuilding the bike at airport took too long (45min?). After lunch and heading out of the island, it was already afternoon! We had to hurry… but we still couldn’t help stopping by the convenience store. Here, we saw BLUE SEAL!! (the special ice-cream brand in Okinawa) Also, it was so interesting that, every convenience store in Okinawa also seems to have “portable power bank” at the entrance for renting. Maybe because it is too far from town to town inside Okinawa?
The 1st day is always the toughest! Especially before we came, we already knew the weather was getting bad! Although it didn’t rain, we experienced unbelievably strong head-wind all the way… I had heavy rain, cold weather, typhoon… all kinds of things during cycling trips, but so far this strongest wind was the WORST! Weather report said the wind was average 11m/s, but I think it might have been as high as 15m/s at times. Also, we were riding along the coastline, the wind were actually blowing horizontally, not only very loud, I had hard time keeping my handle straight. There were nothing around to block the wind except us, and our panner bags were not helping at all! I think I had muscle-ache on my arms after 1st day!
Okay, after very long coastline and straight road (up & down) with pine trees and US bases, we arrived Kadena city. Kadena has the biggest US Air Force base in Okinawa, and restaurants, so we decided to take an early dinner (considering it’s Christmas night), and rode like 7km longer to our hostel.
On the way, we passed by a Ham factory with a huge pig character. Right! Okinawa people loves pork, so we see pig and eat pork all the time there.
We also passed by a quiet port with a few parked boats. The sea of Okinawa is of such beautiful color, and people seem to like this color, so they often paint their boats, cars, furnitures, houses… all in this light blue color, so beautiful!
We tried a few restaurants, but they were all either closed early or fully-booked, because it’s Christmas time! We wanted to eat at the popular chained Okinawa Steak restaurant called “88 House“, but it was also full. Finally, we were able to find an unknown but cozy little restaurant, and had hamburger steak as dinner. Not bad. It was actually quite juicy and fresh!
After dinner, it became dark. We were already tired because of waking up early, but still had to ride some more to the hostel. The problem was, the sea wind was getting stronger and stronger, and the roads were so dark and quiet, no cars and no street lights. We could only see from our headlamps, and kept hearing the strong wind and seawaves next to us, but saw nothing! I tried to keep the handle straight and kept going, up & down, up & down… The time went so slow after dinner.
Thanks god! We finally arrived! Our hostel was actually right behind a convenience store, but we had no mood to stop by anymore, just checked in & went to bed. It was a nice hostel, because all the rooms were at ground level, so we simply dragged our bikes into the room, like that! I loved it, because I didn’t need to unload all the stuffs, and lock the bike! Nice clean room with bathroom/shower inside too! Good night~~~ Enough for today.
Today we rode from Naha (Airport) to Onna town, a short round-trip to Senaga Island in-between, a total of roughly 72km! Considering the 11-15m/s strong head wind, and we only started riding from about noon, not bad for a 1st day…
Since Google Map does not show Cycling Mode in this area, it is shown by Walking mode.