Day 4 - Komatsu to Kahou
Komatsu is one of the recipient towns of the Hokuriku shinkansen extension. Like all these towns we've travelled though, the program seems to extend to not just a revamp of the station but also creating a station square and improvements in the town or city itself. The area around Komatsu station is certainly a nice place to be. For my money, Komatsu seems best placed to succeed into this new foray into tourism with a seemingly good base load of business travellers no doubt enjoying the improved facilities.
Route
Based on the stats I was expecthing this to be a gentler day, at just shy of 60kms and a straight shot up the coast along the Komatsu cycleway with no climb to speak of. So we allowed ourselves a lesisurely start to the day and didn't roll away until after 10am. As they say, lies, damned lies and statistics.
Rolling on to the beginning of the Komatsu cycleway we were struck in the face with a 25-30 km/h headwind. The surface of the cycleway at its southern end was very uncomfortable with ridges between the concrete slab forming a corrugated effect. I'm not sure if the poor surface is a result of the impacts of the January Noto earthquake or just the natural result of the hubris of building a structure right on the sea shore.
While the coastal scenery is certainly pretty, once you've seen a sandy beach, you've kinda seen it. Just shy of Kanazawa port we finally gave up on the bouncy, bouncy and the headwind and headed inland to wend our way through market gardens to our lunch destination. I'm not quite sure how these gardens look so amazing growing literally in sand.
After lunch we rerouted from the planned continuation of the coastal bikeway and headed inland to avoid the wind as much as possible. That added some distance and a bunch of additional climbing. That, with the late start, meant the afternoon was a bit of a struggle.
Stay and Eat
I liked the look of Oto Cafe and the experience lived up to expectations. Really nice food and a lovely outlook over the river and boat harbour. The croissant waffle lived up to expectations for dessert.
Given Beloved's birthday, we sprung for one of our more expensive accommodations and stayed at Kahoukutei Ryokan for the night. 10/10 would do again. This is a really elegant modern style ryokan. On check in we were assigned a dedicated slot in the onsen meaning we could bathe together which was a treat. Our room was a separate little pavillion accessed though a tiny inside/outside breezeway from the main building. Everything was just so in our little world there. Our evening meal and breakfast was included in the rate and was all superb including local specialities such as wild harvested warabi picked from the mountains by our host.
See and Do
I may be selling Komatsu Tourism short, but I didn't see a lot of reason to stay in Komatsu beyond a single night. We had a quick peek at Komatsu Mori adjacent to the station and took some photos with big yellow machines. And that was pretty much us.
