On Saturday I was heading out to a rave party called Natureza in the mountain area of Izu Pennisula. About 2 and a half hours drive from home. After an hour or so, we turned off the main highway onto a narrow, winding forest road that twisted like mad. I straight away thought, DRIFTERS! About 5 mins later that road ended and came out at a junction... From this point on the road got even better, it was like a was entering drivers paradise... This was at the highest part of the road, twisting and flowing up and over a mountain. On our way back yesterday afternoon... This name has a familiar ring to it... We spotted Mt. Fuji reaching up into the clouds just a moment after I took the previous picture. This may show just how high up that road is. My Type R couldn't be any further away right now...
Awesome stuff Seido. Where are you living in Japan? I could have the chance in the near future to relocate to Tokyo for a year or two. Would you recommend it? I have been to Osaka for a couple of weeks before and it seemed pretty cool.
wow. looks amazing. always wanted to drive a road like that. i searched "nishina pass" in google images.. mostly just got naked japanese women haha.
NICE PICS DUDE. yeah i agree with ya there SNAKEiSM, Broken Hill roads SUCK!!! Buuuut the overpast and the back track is not a bad strip of blacktop to foot down on.
I'm living in Numazu, Shizuoka Prefecture. About 1 hr or so south of Mt Fuji. Osaka is cool. I prefer it more than Tokyo, it's different. Mi ooman used to live in Osaka for years. Tokyo is just absolutely f'n massive... really is a concrete jungle...so built up and dense. Summer there is sooo hot. Very nice country Japan. As for Nishina Pass, I'll be heading back there on my own in the next couple of weeks. Early in the morning in my Daihatsu YRV. AT, lowest gear possible....get the little turbo working lol and I'll get as many pics as I can and post em here for pure viewing pleasure
hell yeh do it, get a manual boost controller for like 30 bucks off ebay and run 14psi (1 bar) lol then the thing will fly! haha Daihatsu's are awesome. 3 of my mates just bought Mira's lol, they love em.
Ah those roads remind me of NZ. There were some similar hill roads backing onto Christchurch we used to run occasionally. Less than 15mins away from where I lived. I used to love driving inter-city in NZ. I would regularly make the 400km trip from Christchurch to Nelson. It was winding hills most of the way. Awesome fun. Families would do the trip in 5-5.5hrs with no stops at 100km/hr+ where possible. In my 850cc austin mini (terminal speed <110km/hr with any sort of inlcine or headwind) I did it in 3hrs45mins. In my $400 '81 Mitsi Express/Galant wagon (the ones with the trapezoidal rear window), stock as 1600cc 4speed and budget tyres (read: body roll central!) I did it in 3hrs15mins and had a 10-15min slow period at about 80km/hr max as my brakes recovered from chronic fade. I had to stop from 150km/hr (pretty much terminal velocity) to give way at a one-way bridge. My boss at the time had a brand new 2002 SS Ute (read terminal speed 250km/hr+ and he used it) and was a stock car racer. He was stoked with his time of 3hrs flat that same week until I told him the time I did in my old bucket-box! Mid-week intercity traffic at no particular time of year is golden! Having driven 14,000km's+ around Australia backpacking, I can say with certainty intercity driving is Aus is super boring. Someone else can drive!
I would also love to live in japan..been a couple of times and prefer osaka over tokyo.. Its an amazing country because some of it is still so traditional and then you have the westernised parts of the country too.
Sounds amazing, I'd love to go there. Dad has lived in those cities for work years ago, and some friends worked in the Suzuki factory. They all loved it there. How cool was that pic you put up a while back Seido of the spiral road bridge?!
yea I couldn't believe what I was seeing when we got to it! Just like Cape Ring. it's actually around the same area as Nishina Pass... And on the Highway to Shizuoka City there's a bridge that looks just like the HSR bridge... I gotta get a pic of it..
Christchurch to Nelson is 415km, whichs gives you an average speed of 110.6kph, faster than your terminal speed ;P Tell me about it, ten years ago I used to be able to cruise the open roads/freeways at 140+ without too many worries. These days you will be crucified. I have only had 1 speeding fine, about 5 years ago I was working my way through a line of 10-15 cars where it was safe to overtake on the single lane freeway. 1 of them was an unmarked cop car and unfortunately after I overtook him I didn't really slow down from overtake speed. 140kph in a 100 zone = 6 months loss of license!! Lucky I was working OS for 4-5 of those months. My dad tells me a few stories about the old days, he would regularly do Caulfield to Melbourne Airport (where he worked) in 13 mins (kings way (60mph)-> mt alexander rd(100mph) -> tullamarine fwy (150mph bouncing off the limiter)). This was also during the period of australia's higest road tolls
Ideal conditions on the flat (no headwind) it would do 120km/hr and there's plenty of downhills to boost that average speed. I got up to 150km/hr once... the mini began to shake to let me know it didn't agree well with this kind of speed. The accuracy of the old mini's speedo probably wasn't very reliable though. Got a few little boosts from slip streaming other cars too, then slingshot passed out of a corner. Anyway the point was that I made up the time in the corners, not by doing ridiculous speeds on the straights. Hope he had good brakes, plenty of coins, and good aim for those road tolls :lol:
We are talking about 1970 here... So no tolls, limited cops and the law apparently applied in such a way that the speed limits on the open road were a suggestion, rather than a limit (so I am told). He did have "good brakes" for the era, but still had drums on the rear. FYI speed limits used to be like this: "A common usage of the phrase is the concept of a "prima facie speed limit", which has been used in Australia and the United States. A prima facie speed limit is a default speed limit that applies when no other specific speed limit is posted, and which may be exceeded by a driver. However if the driver is detected and cited by police for exceeding the limit, the onus of proof is on the driver to show that the speed at which the driver was travelling was safe under the circumstances. In most jurisdictions, this type of speed limit has been replaced by absolute speed limits."
I was twisting your words dusty. I know you meant road toll as in death, and that there were no toll booths!. Ah yea I remember when most of the NZ intercity speed limit signs were just that black stripe for open road - pretty sure that meant 100km/hr recommended in the same way as your "prima facie speed limit" description. Now they are pretty much all absolute 100km/hr.
