Muroiwa cave, Matsuzaki

We kicked off the final day of our Izu road trip with a drive to the Muroiwa cave, which is next to the town of Matsuzaki. This was another one of those random “I saw it on Google Maps”-type finds but it was quite a fun little detour. The parking lot for this one really is quite random. There’s space for maybe 3 - 4 cars on a gravel patch off the highway road. Hope no cars are coming, make a dash across the road, and then you’ll head down to the entrance of the caves. Before you do though, there’s a sign in Japanese recommending you to bring a flashlight, so it might be good to have one of those handy (or use your phone). The entrance to the cave warns that the lights in the cave only turn on during the daytime from 8:30am. We had a fairly early start and it was like 8:15, but the lights were already on anyway. Unlike any of the caves you might visit near Tokyo (i.e. full of tourists) this one actually does feel a bit spooky as the lighting is fairly minimal, and there isn’t really…