Shimanami Kaido

The Shimanami Kaido is an expressway linking Japan's main island of Honshu with the island of Shikoku. It has an accompanying 70-or-so km cycle path which parallels the expressway only on the bridge portions of the journey. Most of the time, the cycle path follows minor roads and some dedicated bicycle & pedestrian paths. The only hitch with the ride was returning from Imabari, the end point in Shikoku, back to where the cars were parked. If I were to do this ride again, I would make the ferry to Imabari the first leg of the journey and start cycling from there instead of cycling from Onomichi to Imabari and hoping the ferry schedule works in my favor (there were issues because not all ferries accept bicycles due to the space being used for freight instead). That said, despite the inconvenience of returning to Onomichi at the end, the ride was well worth it. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

PS-This excursion was my first trip to Shikoku, which is one of the four main islands of Japan (Kyushu, Honshu, and Hokkaido being the other three).