Awashima Island: Getting There by Bus and Ferry, Cycling the Island and Wappa-ni

Getting to Awashima

Leg	How	Time	Fare
Murakami Station to Iwafune port	Iwafune circular bus	About twenty minutes	Two hundred yen
Murakami Station to Iwafune port, alternative	Shared taxi, book ahead	About twenty minutes	Seven hundred yen
Iwafune port to Awashima	Ordinary ferry, one way	One hour thirty-five minutes	Fare in next row
Iwafune port to Awashima, adult fare	Ordinary ferry, one way	Time in row above	Two thousand eight hundred forty yen

Getting Around Awashima

Rent a bicycle without electric assist for five hundred yen for up to four hours, or one thousand yen if you ride for longer than four hours. Lending hours run from eight thirty in the morning to five in the afternoon.

If you bring your own bicycle, hand it over as baggage at the ferry entrance for five hundred twenty yen. Check in baggage at least twenty minutes before departure. Pack what you need before boarding, because Awashima has no drugstores and no convenience stores.

Cycling the Island Paths

Ride the cycle road that runs around the island for twenty-three kilometers. In early summer, rock lilies color the island orange.

Step into the Awashima village museum, where adults pay two hundred yen and elementary and junior high school students pay one hundred yen. After dark, waves and wind are the sounds you hear on Awashima.

Wappa-ni, a Bath and a Place to Stay

Try wappa-ni, a fishermen's dish in which reef fish and miso go into a wappa, a bowl of bent cedar, hot water is poured over them, and a red-hot stone is dropped in.

Soak at Otohime no Yu, which operates as a public bathhouse because of a machine breakdown. Adult admission is five hundred yen, tax included. Otohime no Yu is closed every Tuesday, so check official information before visiting.

Every minshuku in the Uchiura district stands within a ten-minute walk of Uchiura port. A night with two meals runs from nine thousand nine hundred yen for an adult of junior high school age or above, consumption tax included and service charge excluded.

For a start from Iwafune port in the morning, places to stay near Murakami keep you on the mainland the night before.