Kochi Prefecture, on the southern edge of Shikoku, was one of those places in Japan that just kept opening up.
Every time I thought I had seen the best of it, the road gave me something else.
This was Episode 12 of Project 47 — my solo motorcycle journey across all 47 prefectures of Japan. Kochi marked the twelfth prefecture of the series and the final one I would ride on the Triumph Scrambler.
What began as a simple coastal ride through Kochi turned into one of the most visually overwhelming stretches of the entire journey — hidden coastal landmarks, forest shrines, rider cabins, fresh fish markets, limestone highlands, deep mountain gorges, unexpected campsites, and one last long push before a typhoon forced me to make the call to head home.
Below is the journey across Kochi Prefecture in Shikoku, Japan.
Day 1 — Kochi’s Old Coastal Road and Kannon Rock
I woke up at a quiet coastal campsite and rolled into Kochi feeling good.
The plan for the day was fairly loose. Follow the Pacific coastline, check out a few places that mattered to me personally, find a waterfall, and just see what Kochi wanted to show me.
It didn’t take long before Kochi started delivering.
The first real surprise was the road itself.
Google had avoided sending me along part of this old coastal route, and once I saw the condition of it, I understood why. Moss on the surface, rough edges, and the kind of narrow forgotten road where once you commit, you are pretty much committed until the end.
But those are often the roads that turn out to be the best.
And this one — running along the Kochi coastline — was beautiful.
The sea, the cliffs, the sense of riding through an older layer of Japan — it felt like a proper way to begin.
My first stop was Kannon Rock, a coastal rock formation said to resemble Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of mercy.
The walk out there was wild and beautiful, with monkeys in the area and the Pacific opening out below. Flying the drone was a little nerve-racking because birds of prey came in to have a go at it, but the place was worth every second of tension.
It was one of those locations where it feels hard to leave, because every angle gives you another reason to stay.
Riders, Forest Roads, and a Waterfall in Kochi
Back at the bike, I met another rider from Tokyo on a brand-new Ducati Scrambler.
We ended up talking bikes, road trips, and routes for a while, and before long it felt like we’d known each other much longer than we had. That’s one of the best things about traveling by motorcycle. Conversations start easily, and the road creates friendships in places you never expected.
After that I moved on in search of a waterfall somewhere in the forests of Kochi.
It had been too long.
Northern Kyushu had been hit by flooding earlier in the trip, and a lot of the falls I wanted to see there had been inaccessible, with roads washed out and trails closed. So getting to one in Kochi felt overdue.
The ride inland was beautiful.
Monkeys everywhere.
Forest roads.
That feeling of heading toward something good.
When I arrived, the setting was exactly what I hoped for — a shrine tucked into the woods with the waterfall dropping nearby, all of it wrapped in dense green forest.
It was one of those perfect little Japanese scenes that feels almost too balanced to be real.
Shrine.
Waterfall.
Forest.
Silence.
Kochi was making a very strong case for itself already.
Shimanto — Riding Through Remote Kochi
By then it was getting late, so I decided not to overcomplicate the evening.
The idea was simple: ride the coast, enjoy the view, and stop at a riders’ cabin for the night.
There’s something deeply Japanese about those places — motorcycle inns and cabins built with touring riders in mind. They used to be a much bigger part of the culture, and it feels like they’re fading a little now, which makes the good ones feel even more special.
The ride through the Shimanto region of Kochi was incredible.
Rivers.
Coast roads.
Small towns.
Just enough traffic to remind you civilization still existed, but not enough to ruin the flow.
By the time I reached the riders’ cabin, I was ready for it.
The room was simple, the ocean sat right out front, and it felt like exactly the right place to stop.
The owners were proper bikers too — full of life, full of stories. Unfortunately I had been so tired the night before that I had passed out instead of staying up to drink and talk with them, which is something I ended up regretting.
Because places like that aren’t just accommodation.
They’re part of the road.
Day 2 — From Kochi’s Fish Markets to the Shikoku Karst
The second morning started early.
Kochi is famous across Japan for its fish, especially bonito, so before heading into the mountains I made a stop at a nearby market I’d heard was worth checking out.
It absolutely was.
Fresh sashimi from the morning catch, served simply and perfectly.
One bite and it was obvious why Kochi has the reputation it does.
That meal alone would have made the stop worthwhile.
But I had a bigger goal for the day.
The mountains.
Specifically, the karst road high up in Kochi that I had heard was unreal.
And once I got there, unreal was exactly the word.
The climb up was already good.
Then the landscape opened.
And it stopped being just a mountain road.
Suddenly I was on top of the world.
Limestone plateau.
Massive views.
Road carving across the ridgeline.
Sky everywhere.
This was the Shikoku Karst — one of the most unique riding landscapes not just in Kochi, but in all of Japan.
It was one of those places where you genuinely do not know where to look because every direction is ridiculous.
I kept running out of words.
There are roads that are fun, roads that are scenic, roads that are satisfying.
And then there are roads like this that just blow you wide open.
Kochi’s karst highlands were one of the biggest visual highs of the entire series so far.
Nakatsu Gorge — Deep in the Mountains of Kochi
After dropping off the back side of the mountain with pure stoke still pouring out of me, I saw a sign for Nakatsu Gorge and decided to go.
That turned out to be one of the best spontaneous choices of the whole prefecture.
The ride there was already excellent, but the gorge itself was something else.
The entrance felt like stepping into another world.
The trail through the gorge had this almost fantasy quality to it — moss, water, deep green everywhere, the kind of place where you half expect to see something just off the path.
And then the waterfall at the end.
It was unbelievable.
One of those moments where you genuinely don’t know whether the best thing you saw that day was the road you rode or the place you arrived at.
By the time I left, I had stayed far longer than I should have.
And that created a problem.
The Last Light and the Unexpected Campsite
I had about thirty minutes of daylight left.
The nearest campsite I could find looked to be a couple of hours away.
There was no realistic chance I would get there before dark, especially not on those roads with the underpowered headlight on that bike.
So the goal changed.
Get down out of the mountains.
At least reach a major road.
Then decide what to do.
As I was leaving, I met a lovely Australian couple, Simon and Allie, who were traveling through the area. We ended up chatting for a few minutes, trading road impressions and talking about how incredible this part of Japan is to ride.
Then it was time to move.
Fast.
The light was disappearing, and I didn’t want to be on those mountain roads in full darkness if I could avoid it.
Then, just as I was beginning to think I might need to pitch the tent somewhere improvised, I saw it.
A campsite.
Right there.
A tent already pitched below.
That was enough for me.
I dropped in, put the tent up, and called it.
It wasn’t the elegant end to the day I’d imagined.
But it was exactly what I needed.
Day 3 — Kochi City and Sakamoto Ryoma
The next morning brought a new reality.
A fairly serious typhoon was forming to the south of Japan and heading toward Shikoku and Kyushu. Late-season typhoons can be strong, unpredictable, and very messy, and this one looked like it had the potential to stall everything for days.
So I made the safe call.
Finish Kochi that day.
Then start heading home toward Miyazaki rather than pushing into the next prefecture and risking getting trapped for a week.
That changed the day immediately.
Instead of drifting deeper into the journey, I now had a compressed final run through Kochi.
A few key places.
One last sweep through the prefecture.
Then the long ride home.
The main reason I headed into Kochi City was to visit the museum dedicated to Sakamoto Ryoma.
He’s one of those historical figures in Japan who still feels alive in the imagination of the country — a low-ranking samurai who helped broker the alliances that led to the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and the birth of modern Japan.
Ryoma was assassinated at just 31, but his impact on the country was immense.
The museum was well worth the visit.
It gave the final city stop in Kochi some real weight and perspective.
After so much time in forests, mountains, and coastlines, it was good to step into the story of someone who had helped reshape the whole country I was riding through.
From there, the museum staff pointed me toward something completely different.
A hobby museum.
In rural Kochi.
Which sounded exactly weird enough to be worth checking out.
Kaiyodo Hobby Museum — Japan Being Japan
The Kaiyodo Hobby Museum turned out to be one of those places only Japan seems capable of doing properly.
A rural school building filled with thousands of incredibly detailed figurines, collectibles, monsters, animals, dinosaurs, anime characters, and all kinds of things that range from nostalgic to deeply niche.
A lot of it was outside my frame of reference.
But enough of it wasn’t.
And the parts I did recognize took me straight back to childhood.
It was one of those stops that feels slightly absurd in the best possible way — something you’d never expect to find where it is, but once you do, it makes perfect sense that it exists.
Kochi had a lot of that energy.
Unexpected, but somehow exactly right.
Cape Ashizuri — The Southern Edge of Kochi, Japan
By that point I was running out of daylight.
But I still wanted one final proper finish to Kochi.
So I made the push south toward Cape Ashizuri and Hakusan Natural Arch.
That meant there was no chance I’d make the ferry that night.
It also meant I would need to find somewhere to camp afterward.
I didn’t care.
It had been too good a day to cut short.
The ride down was beautiful, and when I reached the cape, it felt like the right place to bring the prefecture to a close.
The sea.
The rocks.
The cave-like natural arch.
That last look out over the Pacific.
It was exactly the kind of ending Kochi deserved.
Where You Least Expect It — Kochi, Shikoku
Kochi gave me more than I expected.
Not because I had underestimated its scenery.
Because I hadn’t realized just how consistently Kochi — and this part of Shikoku — would deliver.
Everywhere I turned there was another road, another view, another place that felt impossible to improve on — until the next one came.
A forgotten coastal route.
A sacred rock.
A forest waterfall.
A riders’ cabin.
Fresh fish from the morning catch.
A karst road high in the sky.
A gorge that looked like something out of another world.
A museum for one of Japan’s great historical figures.
A rural school packed with strange treasures.
A final cape over the Pacific.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, the realization landed quietly.
Kochi is the kind of place where the best things in Japan keep appearing where you least expect them.
That is what made it special.
And that is why it became one of the standout prefectures of the journey so far.
Next stop: Tokushima Prefecture.