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.