On departure poked around old rolling stock, one of the carriages looked like it was set up as a long sleeping platform. Little did we know this would recur through the day – another flat one near the coast, but a bit cooler and more interesting.

Route planning in full swing; like in Mongolia – as I wasn’t the one on a short timeframe, I stayed out of it and stuck to navigating once the file was sent to me.

After reaching a big estuarine lake, Lake Saroma, we spent thirty kilometres riding around most of one side of it! Lots of buoys out in extensive patches, shrimp being the catch the lake is known for.

Still unable to get over how picturesque and clean the dairy farms are – certainly not contaminated with cows!

More rail history standing by the side of the road, this lot in a nice park – also with a carriage set up for sleeping. Would have liked to stay in one of these, but it never quite worked out. Still, something different to look at compared to the previous days – never did find out the history of the long-closed line, disappointingly.

Suspect our loaded bikes are faster than these small wheels.

A few locomotive pics for those interested:

A little cut through some farmland away from the lake, first large greenhouse complex of note; which is curious as the winters aren’t exactly mild up here.

Back beside the lake, but seemingly going the wrong way – exploring a little headland park and campground.

Into Tokoro town for another Seicomart lunch. Also worked out that the big box store was probably a hardware store, so I popped over to try and replace a gas cylinder for our stoves.

Amused to see an indoor curling rink; more amused to find that one of my Naseby mates has curled there.

Colourful borders back besides the streets.

I may have overstocked on camping supplies at the hardware store.   😮

Still scallops around here.

Approaching Lake Notoro, it was pleasing to find some of the old rail route had been converted to a cycling road (as they’re called here). Although a bit neglected, twenty-seven kilometres of dedicated path, often shady, was most welcome.

Biggest snake yet, it waited until we were right next to it before showing signs of life. Alarming.

Certainly was old train day. No accommodation in this one but.

Leaving Lake Notoro, soon riding beside Lake Abashiri, we began to see huge concrete hotels, all abandoned. Mind boggling the size and expense of some structures left to decay.

Abashiri is known for its museums, the one chosen for the afternoon partway up the only hill of the day – later to take us to a campground. Was about to say I’ve not been to a prison museum before, but I can think of at least one – Abashiri’s not quite as famous. A large complex with many old prison buildings, many relocated from around Hokkaido, this was the most interesting and informative learning of Hokkaido so far for me.

The prisons were from the late nineteenth century when most of Hokkaido was being colonised by the Japanese (some Japanese settlement in the southwest close to Honshu before this and the Ainu people well before that). The prisoners were mostly political prisoners and were set to work creating agricultural land, building roads and other infrastructure. I was surprised to find that Japanese settlement was so late (goes a long way to explain the mild disappointment I had in Hokkaido, that it didn’t feel as Japanese – for want of a better expression – as I expected Japan to feel) and it was motivated by a desire to keep the tsarist Russian “menace” (we saw that term a lot in the English translations) at bay.

Guard booth.

These didn’t look comfortable, particularly the pillow.

Restored lime kiln.

An interpretation of “central” heating.

Further up the hill to find the huge campground overlooking the city. Bemusingly, no tent sites available despite the acres of grass. Eventually got through the rigmarole of checking-in to a small chalet.

I don’t think we broke many of the rubbish rules, but it’s hard to know.

Home for the night – lovely to have limitless shower, bit of a kitchen and plenty of clothes drying space upstairs.

Saying our farewells to Yumi and Ken, a rather flat morning was spent cycling looking at a blue and inviting Sea of Okhotsk. My legs must have started to recover from Mt Rishiri as I spent the first hour or so trying to bury them again just for something to do. I was tiring of all the flat coastal riding. Plenty of scallop factories gave the dominant smell of the morning.

Did stop to look through a fancy deli, all I got was this dubious photo.

When not looking at the sea, I was gazing longingly inland at the hills.

Marigold beds back!

Starting to get a bit more agricultural…

Another Seicomart lunch, but a short distance to the shore was better than eating outside the store – more sea fortifications.

Happily after lunch we could get off the highway, back to quiet lanes through immaculate dairy farms – the smells are the same as at home though, just concentrated around the barns. We even saw a dozen or so cows outside!

Skirting Monbetsu, we got a fifty metre climb!

Some interesting route finding trying to stay off the highway – mostly successful – took us to a campground at the bottom of a wee ski field.

Tent sites under the trees; mostly quiet except the neighbours in the cabins had multiple yappy dogs.

We escaped mosquitoes with a short ride into town for a very nice onsen and a good dinner.

Dog ownership not high in Japan, but what there is often makes up with curious sights.

The one downside of the otherwise excellent little park we camped in was that the fishing boats started up and went out from about two o’clock in the morning! So not a lot of sleep, again; the boats were coming back with their catch as we were going about our morning eating and packing routines.

Rather incongruous windmill.

Don’t know what that was either, except I don’t think it tracks the moon.

Returning fishing boat – the early morning ones all looked like this.

A fairly long and flat day in the heat was in store for us. The northeast coast looked more prosperous than the northwest – many scallop processing plants, shown by the mountains of discarded shells. Also a lot of dairy farms – not that we saw any cows of course, but very tidy fields and large barn complexes. Rachel and Orlaith found a few curiosities to stop and look at…

A fairly large pedestrian route under the quiet highway.

Turned out to be anything but pedestrian.

Certainly brightened up the concrete a bit.

We detoured from the highway to a renowned very straight and long road running parallel to the dunes. A particular favourite of motorcyclists, we soon had our own cheer squad – all seemed ridiculously excited to be on this famous road! Orlaith found it an excellent place to practice riding no-hands.

Eight kilometres is quite a straight in this generally hilly and built-up country.

Leaving the straight, it was back to the farms – with a bonus cycle trail on the map, if only we could get there.

Tracks through farms soon degenerated to a bit of bush bashing.

Soon we were on a lovely tree-lined rail trail, although when we started spying old bear scat the trees started to feel a little close. Unfortunately, as we approached town we came across a bridge that was falling to pieces and very much fenced off. A bit of backtracking (most of the way) past the, hopefully imagined, bears until we could find another farm track to get back to the highway. A pleasant, if unfruitful, diversion.

Still too early for lunch, we took another detour off the other side of the highway to a nature reserve back behind the dunes. Alas, we were a bit late for all the flowers that bloom there. Walking still a struggle it seemed, descending from the observation tower particularly slow!

Must get quite marshy in here.

A good spot for birdwatching too, one imagines. An impressively large tower for a pretty small reserve.

We found that track beyond the roadend did take us all the way to town, past some heavy machinery operating but we didn’t get munched.

Into town for a normal lunch time, and what was now a normal lunch – konbini offerings, can’t go too wrong.

Back on the highway – so often there’s a large path next to them. Sometimes worth riding on, if one can find a way over the curb or be bothered stopping and lifting; joining such a path to be weighed up with the risk it suddenly stops or is quite old and either overgrown or very corrugated from roots pushing up the surface.

The last thirty kilometres of coastal riding for the day got more interesting as it became sandwiched between the coast and big rocky hills and outcrops. If they got too close to the sea, there would often be a tunnel. Sometimes the old coastal road would still be present – nice to take that, but at the risk that it might no longer go through.

We crossed the 45th parallel again – the 45th Parallel International Park was a non-event.

With conflicting information online, we weren’t sure what we’d find where we wanted to camp that night. Turned out the campground was closed, but there was camping nearby in and around a parking lot a short distance from an information centre on the highway – so long as one stayed out of the bear habitat! Tents up, we had enough time to go down to the beach for a drink and a swim.

Highlight of the day was grand hospitality from, and fun conversation with, Yumi and Ken from greater-Tokyo who were travelling in their little camper and cooked an excellent dinner. Thankfully we had been shopping in the last town so were able to contribute a little.

Up early again as far too hot to stay in tents. As we were packing up, we were interested to see a couple of sea kayakers setting up camp at this time of the morning. To our surprise it was Rob and Haidee out adventuring, as they do often – their site documenting their travels seems the biggest English language resource online for such things in Hokkaido. We had already been using the bike section of the website extensively. Great to hear a couple of Kiwi accents and hear firsthand a little about their time living and exploring in Hokkaido.

Back south along the east coast for a bit (Rachel’s photo).

The first of a lot of kelp we saw drying today.

A good example of a tsunami escape staircase, don’t remember there being a lot of houses or people around here though.

One of the longer gallerias we saw and rode through.

Halfway down the island we turned inland and found a delightful forest road that gave us views from the centre of the island to the west coast and over the Sea of Japan. Steep to start with, that section was partly shaded – particularly welcome in the heat. Along the ridge the views really opened up and there were frequent stops. This short section of trail off sealed roads was my favourite section of riding so far in Japan, and remains a highlight.

To get down to the very near west coast, we had to drop steeply to the edge of Rebun town, on the east coast, and go back west through a new tunnel – this at least wonderfully cool and quiet. With time up our sleeves before the ferry back to Wakkanai, we pottered around the coast – a short dip, a short walk to a cleft in the rocks and then a little ride south to look at rocks that don’t look like the things they’re named after.

(Rachel’s photo)

Not a cat.

(Rachel’s photo)

A popular spot, hadn’t seen so many people in one place on these islands.

Back through the tunnel, alarming to be passed by the high-pitched whine of this scooter.

Still some time until the ferry arrived, why not go to the end of the island’s roads to the south? This was mostly through more down-on-their-heels coastal villages.

Back to join the motorbikes.

Bit busier than last time (Rachel’s photo).

So it was goodbye to the little island of Rebun – a very enjoyable day we had there. We’d started to enjoy the carpeted floor areas that were set up for sitting and lying down – no shoes; good for a bit of stretching, napping and general lounging around. Back to Hokkaido we went to ride to the northernmost point of that island.

Around Wakkanai’s port again.

Heading out east, the coastal road (very flat) curved around to the north to put the wind directly behind us – very easy riding. Didn’t look like there were going to be many options at Cape Soya, so a stock-up at the last Seicomart was in order.

Funny, coming from the kiwifruit capital of the world, to see them right at the top of Japan. Would realise during the trip that Zespri is the NZ brand that one sees most in Japan.

The stock, and low cost, of RTDs (ready-to-drink alcoholic drinks in NZ vernacular) in konbinis was always alarming; of the few I tried, I didn’t find a gin-based one I really liked. Nice change at the end of a hot day though, as a contrast to all the soft drinks.

Almost at Cape Soya, someone had found a diversion up the Path of White Shells. A very steep old road made up of crushed sea shells. Bathed again in sweat to end the day.

Very much crushed shells; at least some use for the piles we’d see at various processing plants.

Good views from the top of the three Rs – Rishiri, Rebun and Russia (Sakhalin Island).

Sakhalin Island in the distance.

Rishiri to the left, Rebun on the right (Rachel’s photo).

(Rachel’s photo)

Back on the coastal road for the last twenty minutes to the cape, in time for sunset. As Rachel mused, more land of the setting sun than rising sun for us – rather missing summer clock adjustment.

We found a good park to make camp in near the port – toilet block, water and even a picnic table for cooking dinner on.