Gordon:  Our guidebook says “If you visit only one of the Yaeyama islands (the islands of the Ishigaki group) make it Iriomote.  This is where the wild things roam”.  An invitation like that cannot be ignored, so we are spending most of a week on this UNESCO designated island.

The poster child of the wild things is the Iriomote cat, a housecat sized feline found nowhere else on earth.  With perhaps 100 of them in existence, they are only slightly more numerous than unicorns.  We did ask our hosts if they had actually seen a live Iriomote cat, and both said that they had in recent months.  So we keep our eyes open on our rides and walks on this wild island.

While we have yet to see a cat, we have been fortunate to see a couple of endangered birds.  The first was the serpent eagle, which we saw several of on our first long ride around the half of the island serviced by a road.

A few days later Ruth took a picture of the largest egret that we had seen.  When she enlarged the image she realized that it was actually a Siberian crane, a critically endangered species which must be wintering here.

Yesterday we took a boat trip up the Urauchi River, the longest in Okinawa prefecture.  It felt like an outing on the African Queen as we wound our way up the still, meandering river between banks lined by several species of mangrove.  Most of Iriomote is completely undeveloped, so the hills are cloaked with unaltered subtropical jungle.  It’s gorgeous.

From the ferry stop, a cleverly enhanced rock, we walked several kilometres through the jungle to visit a few waterfalls.  We didn’t see any Iriomote cats, but we did hear a green whistling pigeon, which sounds just like someone playing a tin whistle.

We also followed a trail to a former coal mine.  It was abandoned in 1943, and since then the site has been almost completely reclaimed by the jungle.  The mine was one of the dark chapters in the human history of Iriomote, with exploitive working conditions and frightening mortality figures due to malaria.  The disease also cut a swath through the population that was forcibly moved to the island by the Japanese during the Second World War.

Malaria has been eradicated and the island is now very popular with Japanese tourists from the mainland.  Despite having good tourist infrastructure, it still has a wild, frontier feel.

January 8, 2026 – Shiraho Beach – 45 km day ride – Plus Life Shiraho

January 9, 2026 – Shiraho Beach, Ishigaki to Sonai, Iriomote – 58 km cycle  – Padoma apartment 

January 10, 2026 – Sonai, Iriomote – 38 km day cycle – Padoma apartment 

January 11, 2026 – Sonai, Iriomote – 18 km day ride – Padoma apartment

January 12, 2026 – Sonai to Hoshizuna Beach – 14 kms – Terrace Iriomotejima – island count : 15, with the addition of Iriomote – total distance cycled: 1150 kms