Took a few days to spend some time in Noto hanto, a big peninsula in Ishikawa-ken, north of Gifu.
Day 1 started quite early, I wanted to get the ETC discount, so got up at 2a.m. to pack wednesday morning. Left the house, feeling pretty good about packing everything. Downloaded some of the noto hanto routes from other people, and took off, 3:30 ish from home. Doesn’t take too long to get to the Chuo highway….oh wait, this says it is the Shuto. hmm. well, only 3:50, should be fine. After paying for that leg of the shuto, I got a bit worried…. I vaguely remembered the Chou toll being way out there…. uh oh. Ended up crossing the toll booth at Hachioji with my bike clock reading 4:06a.m. Not sure if they count “being on” back on the shuto for the discount….! well, exiting Matsumoto, it was 2450JPY….not sure if that includes a discount or if it is the normal price. whatever.
Just before departing home, I noticed the zumo wasn’t on. That’s bad. Power on again. Keeps turning off. This is not good. Gets to the “Loading Maps” and then turns off. I took off anyway, figuring if I really really had to, I could use maps and not the navi. Too bad I spent that time getting the Starcom sorted out, so my music and phone would be all connected through the zumo and I’d have tunes and phone calls.
At the first big-ish rest stop I brought out the laptop to try and revive my zumo. Turns out one of the map files it didn’t seem to like, so I found some files that I put on the zumo last, and removed those, and it worked! great, now I got tunes.
Dangozaka SA setup
Dawn at Dangozaka SA
Headed over to Takayama…. somewhere I’d been before, but not on a bike. Got gas on the way, noticed that I didn’t actually have my mapple for Chubu. That really sucks, because the navi is great, but only if you know where you are going! Therein lies the power of the Mapple. A conbini dude pointed me to a random bookstore in Takayama…. I pulled up at 9:20, looked quite closed. Guy came out and I asked if it was open and he said sure…. turned on the lights for me. Didn’t actually open till 10…. nice guy. I’m in there, they’ve got Mapples! sweet! OK, time for Kanji bingo, check the map on the front (the 2009’s seem to have a less readable map on the front)….no Chubu…. hmm…this kinda sucks. I start to panic a bit, looking at other maps to just have something…. and the bookshop guy comes up behind me with the Chubu mapple in hand! He just pulled it out of a box of other books that looked recently opened. Very cool…. I was quite relieved. Way more drama than I needed, especially thinking that I had everything!
Takayama seemed to have more activity than normal, especially for a Wednesday. Turns out the Matsuri was going on…. it was actually delayed a day due to rain, so I checked it out. It is apparently quite famous for the floats that parade around town, lots of ceremony, etc. Very crowded, lots of pushing and shoving to get pics, very annoying. Decided to move on after that.
Takayama Matsuri Float
After leaving Takayama, went north to Noto Hanto. Was advised to go around clockwise, so started on the west side, hit the Nagisa Driveway, which is a beach that you can drive on…. Couldn’t find any campgrounds that looked open, which was annoying. The local business hotels looked pretty dire as well…. consulted my Route Inn guide and found the closest one on the other side of the peninsula in Nanao. Oh well, 40 minutes the wrong way, but it is somewhere to stay….and you get internet at Route Inns….
That’s about it for Day 1. More pics later in the ride report.
Keep on truckin Dude!