Kyoto via Kiso Valley

When I wrote the post below we were still about 100km away from our guesthouse in Kyoto. We had planned to stay at a campsite beside Lake Biwa but when we arrived after 9 hours of cycling,  it was closed. Apparently,  "free camping " is allowed in this country but we are trying to avoid it as to not offend anyone but in circumstances like last night we had no other option. We set up in a gazebo/bench area beside the lake and slept in the open air. We woke early to get on the road and ensure we were out of the way before anyone turned up. After another long day we arrived in Kyoto...we are excited to explore! See below for what we have been up to the past few days (written last night). 

There is always a point when doing long trips where one decision serendipitously leads to another. When we decided to stow our bikes and complete a section of the alps via bus it opened up the opportunity to explore another region that Chad had read about but was not going to be on route if we had biked to Takayama. The Kiso valley runs south from Matsumoto and allowed us to connect to Kyoto through an old Japanese trade route. It meant a little more planning as the routes we had researched to date did not see us venturing in this direction.  The route we ended up taking served up lots of extra kilometers to bypass busy roads but along the way we explored three old post towns which were worth all of them. On the first day out of Matsumoto we stopped at Narajuku. That night we camped outside of Kiso village and day two took us to Tsumago and Magome. Finally, we used day three to put our heads down and hammer out some kilometers to help us reach Kyoto, hopefully tomorrow. Tonight we have reached Lake Biwa and will camp here before following it down towards Kyoto tomorrow. 

We have so many thoughts about bike travelling but more importantly such warm thoughts about Japan and the Japanese people. It reminds us a lot of being in New Zealand,  perhaps there is something unique that people who survive in large island nations possess but it comes across as curiosity,  kindness and an embracing nature towards us as visitors. All throughout the day we get many thumbs up and smiles as we pass by or stop in to grab food. Most want to know which country we are from and give us an obvious nod towards what we are doing by biking across the country. We have come to realize what a feat bike travelling can be and will make sure in the future if we ever see a travelling biker passing by we will be sure to try to treat them as well as we have been treated here, and hopefully have the chance to give them something for the road, as many have given us.