A quick pack-up and exit from our salubrious garage at the hotel – kept us dry overnight, most excellent.
Like we were never there.
We went to the closed campground to make breakfast and found an extensive, but neglected park. The water was still on, so we could have camped and cooked there after all – but there wasn’t much shelter, so wetter and less comfortable it would have been.
Back down the valley through Kamisunagawa – it looking a little better under sunny skies.
Another old mine shaft tower.
Pity we missed this local history museum’s opening hours.
More pint-sized underground machinery.
The buildings around this little bit giving off a completely different vibe to the rest of town.
At least this map made more sense than some others we’d seen. We had been at the top right overnight.
Always enjoy spotting an old Alfa, in memory of a good friend.
Leaving town we were heading for the big smoke to see if Rachel would have more luck replacing her chain. Not even ten kilometres into the day and we were out of the flats of the Ishikari River – which would take us to the city with a mixture of sealed and gravel roads through a lot of rice growing.
Kei truck conga line?
More abandoned old worker accommodation.
Immediately after a lot of these new houses – they go up in less than a month apparently. Sounds like buying from a catalogue. (Rachel’s photo.)
Started to see our first rice harvesting.
(Rachel’s photo.)
Still a few more onions around.
Crossing the Ishikari, it was a lot browner than we’d seen four weeks before. (Rachel’s photo.)
Back up on stop banks now (Rachel’s photo.)
Into the city to a multi-storey outdoor gear shop. I got a nice new rain jacket (giving up on the poncho, I sent it home – have at least used it once since, so not a complete waste of time) and replaced scratched-up sunglasses. Spent more time looking at the bikes though…
Sam’s Bike shop was open this time and, to Rachel’s relief, they had the correct chain for her bike – finally! There was also a lot of bikepacking gear in stock and they were interested in our bikes and trip. Just for Brent, here are some of the many frames they had hanging around the place.
Jen had recommended a great little hostel not far from the bike shop, checking in there we found friendly staff and an adorable and cheeky dog:
Still a bit of daylight left as we wandered out through a large park to find dinner.
We may have been distracted by animals again; unsure I can even blame that on the vet.
Struggling to interpret the menu in a Chinese restaurant (the banquet for two we ordered was extensive!), a Japanese couple the table over offered to help. Turned out that they only visit Sapporo in the summer, having lived in New Zealand for over twenty years. Shigeru had lectured dairy science at Massey (the industry and university of Dad), so was able to give us insights into all the dairy farms we’d seen – most interesting. It was lovely chatting to Shigeru and Terumi and share observations of both our countries, and get some answers to things we’d been wondering about Japan.