A cooler, overcast day for another easy hundred kilometres. Around the coast until turning inland (hooray, might find some hills!) short of Shibetsu.
First the usual Seicomart resupply – Hokkaido milk candies a staple, trying out bite-sized meat snacks too (bit odd, want to get through them quickly in the heat). All individually wrapped, of course – not a bad thing in my top tube bag.
Biggest snow shelters seen yet along this stretch.
As we left the coast there was a big museum complex. Extensive displays inside, then relocated fishing and school buildings from more recent history. The audioguides in English, accessed by QR code, were helpful – but again, reception in a concrete bunker of a building not so much.
This made yesterday’s bear encounter more alarming!
Building for fishing work and workers, similar to the one we saw on the northern coast.
Heavy and uncomfortable – wouldn’t want to carry that far.
Bit hot to add to my cycling kit.
Like a bit of bakelite.
The grounds were quite large, so back on the bikes to ride some pleasant boardwalks and paths – with some bonus hike-a-bike. About a kilometre away, there were numerous pits of the indigenous Ainu people that had been excavated. These formed the bottom of their pit houses about a thousand years ago. There were a few reconstructed houses to give a better idea of what they were like.
Lush mossy paths were very pleasant to ride and walk on.
Bark cladding looked ever so delicate – but clearly survives.
Back to sealed roads and inland we went, returning to dairy country, slowly climbing with only a couple of small towns between all the farms.
The common soft drinks vending machine spotted with its less common counterparts – the alcoholic drinks machine.
And seen even less in the wild, the cigarette vending machines.
Milk production clearly taken seriously here, the cows have their own onsen.
The Brilliant Holstein farm was the biggest, and newest, we’d seen yet. Here are some of the buildings and we even saw some animals outside; photos mostly for Dad 🙂 .
Finding some nice gravel, having climbed to the grand altitude of 150 metres, it promptly started drizzling. A konbini just short of our campground provided dinner supplies (no ice creams needed in the rain). We reached the campground office, checked in and loitered in the common area for some hours as it tipped down torrentially for ages! Once it was dark, the rain eased and we ventured out into a lovely camping area – great big shelters for cooking in. Late in the evening when no other campers about, a couple of tents may have gone up in there – but the grounds were so nice and the rain gone, I found a soft patch of lawn and tented there.