I discovered this recently in the depths of my Virgin EPG. NHK is available on Virgin, Sky, Freesat, etc.
Saw a very interesting 50 minutes about a tour of Hokkaido, Japan's far north, by an Aussie called Zac who works for a Japanese cycle company (maybe begins with $/S?). Anyway, a 400Km credit card tour on a rented road bike with a train ride in the middle.
Interesting travelogue along the way. Would be a nice thing to do but would help to have Zac's fluent Japanese.
Excellent production quality as with all NHK stuff.
On the back of this, I recorded a tour of Uzbekistan on NHK but that was a complete bust. Interesting tour but I found the young Japanese actress/cyclist to be plain annoying - a stereotype of cultural self-deprecation.
Seems to be irregular programming but worth keeping an eye on.