A very easy day due to a lot of rain forecast later. No rush to leave though, so I poked around the abandoned hotel next door before we wandered the geothermal area that fed last night’s onsen. Also a new visitor centre just up the road, so spent some time there chatting to the woman, who happened to be an intrepid bike tourer.

Onsen on the right, Rachel and I each had respective halves to ourselves the previous night – not a busy place.

Mt Niseko visible at times – a popular ski area, Rachel having skied there on one of her previous trips to Japan.

A very quiet, smooth and leisurely descent on little more than lanes. Cute town signs to be seen.

Passing a lot of ski villages and runs, we were soon in Kutchan – a bit of a service town. After limited supplies cooking dinner the previous night, we spent a lot of time in town replenishing our reserves.

Best tea in a cafe, for my tastes, yet. Better than our go-to teabags for camping – if I ever return to Japan, must remember to take decent tea.

Also found a huge second-hand gear store – this would be a great place to come if over skiing. Plenty of other sports, clothes and household items covered too.

It was good to be able to shop at a supermarket for a change, this one with a huge array of prepared meals. No cooking for us tonight.

Didn’t take me long to get used to raw fish, so good.

Do love my saddle-bag for its surge capacity.

Only a few kilometres south out of town to a new rider house us pushed over a massive twenty kilometres for the day. Now that it was September, the campground and rider house were empty – so we had great facilities all to ourselves. This would often be the case for the following two months, but it did mean a lot of places weren’t open. Not that that stopped us. The rain arrived in force, but we were safely inside and doing chores by then. What a strangely short day.

Only a little, ten kilometres, of the rugged coastline left to start our day.

Old glass buoys as lampshades, or made to look so.

As we turned inland towards the floodplain, we passed Japan’s first nuclear power station – but it was rather hidden behind the last of the cliffs – one of which we rode through. But there was no missing the visitor centre – which was surprisingly open at nine-thirty on a Sunday.

Even bigger than some of the abandoned hotels we’d seen.

Well, this is different.

I enjoyed poking around the various science and engineering displays, trying to remember what I’d once known about such things – didn’t want to bore Rachel too much by staying too long though.

Some of the interactive displays were impressive.

What we’d not seen hidden away.

Definitely pushing the boundary of our “visitor centre” interpretation – and we didn’t even go to the large heated swimming pool.

Friendly Mr Fission?

Getting a bit ridiculous now, the more we walked around and found still more.

To Kyowa town for lunch and supplies – back to rice fields, and with views of the Niseko range.

Happy guy.

We got distracted by the local history museum, which was also large considering the size of the town we eventually found. A lot of the foyer seemed to be given over to many scarecrows from a local festival (which we’d missed by a fortnight) – most of them were alarming to some degree.

Suspiciously like Mr Fission in disguise.

A bit of smelting history caught my eye.

We’d not seen much reference to the Pacific War in places we’d visited so far, so this was surprising.

Lunch inside a non-chain convenience store was some respite from the heat before we started climbing. First through a little farmland before joining the Niseko Panorama Line. It’d been a while since we’d been in the hills, so our longest climb for over a week was a good change. Even the heat changed when a lot of cloud rolled in, cooling things down pleasantly.

Got a bit of a look a the power plant as we climbed.

The coast down which we’d ridden in the previous day.

Shortly before the pass, there were a series of walking tracks to and around some rather lovely wetlands on a series of boardwalks. The sun came out at times, it rained at times and for a while it did both. Very pleasant to linger and watch the dragonflies and general changes in the weather.

Back at the parking lot, it was time for a big sando and Calpis.

Near the pass, there were a series of tracks through the hillside – making it look even more like teafields.

Fun descent for a couple of hundred metres lost, before turning off and regaining some of that altitude.

Into a very quiet Niseko Goshiki Onsen, some more big abandoned hotels to wonder about.

But there was an immaculately kept, unattended campground. We were the only ones camping, a couple of vehicles overnight in the parking lot.

Another big kitchen shelter to ourselves, mostly.

Over the road at the onsen, we also had our respective halves to ourselves – nice soak up in the mountains before heading back for tea and bed on a misty night.

Wet misty morning to decamp in. There sure were a lot of moths around through the night.

Some stuck around.

And some were brighter than others.

Caught up with our mates from the previous night, breakfast under their shelter. Turns out all the seats in their kei car fold flat to create a sleeping platform – not nearly as cramped as I imagined.

The photo from fifty years ago at this very beach that the guys were revisiting.

I was surprised when they pulled out what Mum would call a jaffle iron, of which one is a larger part of my childhood memories than it probably should be. Haven’t seen them used for grilling cheese on a single slice of bread.

Time for goodbyes.

The road leaving the coast due to the terrain, it was no surprise that we had a decent climb straightaway. Ten kilometres in the hills, the vegetation was dense and damp; still not cold though.

Dropping to a coastal town, we took a steep detour to some short walks high above the sea – good cliffs and a lighthouse for Orlaith, although she was back in NZ by now.

Back down to town.

A little walk away from the crowds, got some good views but didn’t have enough time to finish it.

Spotted this barge travelling around the coast; little did we know we’d shadow each other around the coast intermittently for the rest of our time on Hokkaido.

Through a teeny-tiny tunnel to the most popular viewing area. We started to see some of the famed Shakotan Blue – the crystal clear waters around the peninsula.

Back to sea urchins; dramatic cliffs seem to be the other symbol of this township.

Back at the carpark, this just seems how some dogs travel in Japan.

Not too early for an ice cream from the small store.

Can’t take the quieter, older route out of town this time.

Up to the big parking lot at Shakotan Peninsula, good time for lunch while our tents dried in the sun. Unfortunately the walks were closed around the peninsula end to the lighthouse as a bear had been spotted a couple of days beforehand.

Back to pretty flat riding along the spectacularly rugged coast. Although we probably only saw half of the coast up close, as after a particularly destructive typhoon some twenty years earlier a lot of the highway was routed through the hills in long tunnels.

Between two tunnels, we happened upon two men – one a kayaking fisherman who’d forgotten his fishing rod, and the other a cycle tourist trying to fix a punctured tube. Eventually we worked out that they were father and son. After giving the son a patch for his tube, off we went starting to look for any store we might buy things for dinner – there weren’t many along here.

In this town we found a small store and got some basics, as well as cold drinks. A cute dragon began to appear on the lamp posts.

More old road that we couldn’t take.

To make up for it, the causeway was spectacular.

Found the dragon again – the local mascot, as the indigenous Ainu people recognised the area for its ruggedness and danger.

We found more local produce in the market at the information centre, as well as bumping into father and son again – this time finding that mother was driving a support vehicle.

A shorter day of riding coming to a close as there was a popular spot for camping right there, and no better options further on. Can’t say I’ve camped on sea defences before, but plenty of people were car-camping so it must have been ok.

It had a sweet island to walk to, with its own enclosed saltwater pool.

The family from earlier turned up! The son stayed the night, the parents later driving home.

No country for pegs. But our tents stayed up ok.

Finally father, and son, got out for a fish.

We enjoyed a swim in the little pool.

Suddenly Rachel was going out to sea!

Slightly different campsite to normal.

Before long, it was my turn to sit on top of the kayak and go out for a look. Around the rocks for a bit, the water wonderfully clear and warm there was plenty to see in the slight swell.

Another excellent day drawing to a close, still very hot.

Amusingly I seemed to have got one of my worst photos to help remember the best camp meal of our four months touring. With tofu (who knew?!), mappu sauce and fresh local cherry tomatoes and soba noodles. Yum! We never quite reached this inadvertently obtained standard again, alas.

 

Left our new and excellent hostel heading for the Shakotan Peninsula. But first a twenty kilometre ride out of the city in the morning rush (which wasn’t particularly manic) before hitting the coast – where the highway stayed busy and built-up for some time.

Hostel.

Friday morning in the suburbs sandwiched between the central city and mountains west of Sapporo.

Our obsession with documenting every different manhole cover we found seems to have taken hold – unfortunate it didn’t start four weeks earlier, we missed many.

Waiting waiting for another to trundle past.

Aww.

Bit of fun in a large supermarket trying to find a magnesium supplement – thought it might help both my muscles and sleep – before reaching the touristy centre of Otaru. A large canal was used  for loading barges in the wayback. Many of the warehouses were built of stone, unusually, and have survived. The first warehouse we came to now specialises in music boxes. Never seen so many in my life. Very popular place to visit and with thousands of boxes playing scores of different tunes all out of time – quite an assault on the senses, but not unpleasant!

Steam driven chime clock out front to keep with the theme of mechanisms.

Ornate ones.

Fun ones.

A lot of fun ones.

Old ones.

Half of the ground floor; you can see the stairs from the mezzanine to the third level in the attic.

Back outside to the relative quiet of tourists everywhere.

Back on the bikes to have a look at the canals and some of the other older buildings.

Not as old, but far more derelict.

Lunch eaten outside the, unfortunately, closed Otaru museum we then took a steep exit from the city through narrow streets and lanes – almost deserted though, so that was nice.

Stone store houses continue.

Seeking quieter roads, and being alongside the coast, we found ourselves at a quiet harbour as the cloudy day turned to drizzle.

Leaving the pleasant harbour the road soon turned to steep rough double track – quite a surprise in Japan. We had a work party as an audience, so extra effort made to pedal the whole way up. The back side was even steeper down, but rideable.

Through Yoichi, we struck by this wood clad storehouse (we’d see many of these from Honshu south, but hadn’t seen many so far).  It was part of a museum housed in old buildings, and somehow we got a guided tour.

The thick walls and sloped shutters a recurring feature.

Most of the museum dedicated to what was now becoming a familiar history of the extensive herring fishing industry – where the fish was dried and sent south for fertiliser.

Drying racks.

Onward to find somewhere to camp the night as the drizzle continued. Plenty of tunnels as the hills came down to the coast.

A good sign.

Shakotan Peninsula – always difficult to work out what we might actually see from such maps.

In a rest area at the one of the tunnel portals, there was an explanation of how the many emergency call points we’d seen over the previous month worked. Despite not being able to understand most of it, it was interactive enough (there were flashing lights and so on) to be of some interest!

Over a hill and through some long coastal tunnels we called it a day at Shakotan town as there was a nice seaside area for camping. Having scoped it out, off we went to an izakaya for both dinner and to escape the rain. Returning to make camp, the rain had mostly stopped and we had an entertaining rest of the evening under the shelter two men had set up for cooking and eating.

These guys were old university mates and were repeating a camping trip they’d taken with a group of friends fifty years ago, very cool. They had enough English that we could share stories; much fun, although I couldn’t work out how they were going to get any sleep both squashed into a kei car.

Rachel’s photo.