Away at seven, well – down the hill to Seicomart, yet again; not long before we were at the visitor centre on the edge of Shiretoko National Park.
Back to Utoro.
After the bear attack and body retrieval in the previous few days, most of the hiking tracks were closed in the park. But there was a short one still open behind the visitor centre, so we set off on that. Ten minutes in and we promptly saw an alarmingly large bear crossing the track not really that far in front of us. Thankfully we were far more surprised than the bear – who just kept walking through doing its thing. Turning tail, that was the end of our walk for the day!
Having reported the encounter, there were no longer any trails open in the park. But it seems that our sighting was not unusual, the tenth in the last two weeks according to the calendar below:
No more hiking for us, had better get on with the biking – up over the pass, looking at Mt Rausu most of the way. Good gentle gradient, little traffic and occasional shade.
Back down to the northwest.
Mt Rausu.
Didn’t seen any more bears crossing, thankfully.
View from the pass – big parking lot, plenty of people around.
To the southeast. There’s Russia again, its islands seemingly wrapping around this part of Japan.
Wonderfully long descent it was too; although I got very sleepy on the way down, most unusual – lack of sleep in the heat catching up with me.
We pulled into a wild (for want of a better term) free onsen on the side of the road. Too hot to swim, we did bump into the father and son cyclists for the third time that week.
Quite the little dude; must be strong – his loaded bike was heavier than ours. Perhaps because we weren’t carrying so many souvenirs – deer antlers particularly.
Lunch and ice cream stop in Rausu town before heading up the east side of the peninsula. Not far to a rider house and a campground opposite sandwiched between the road and the rocky coast. Was rather difficult getting tent pegs in. Camp made, we continued as far as the road would take us – seeing a fair bit of wildlife, not to mention rather too much of old men in the hot rock pools that were made in the shallows of the sea.
Plenty of fishing net buoys all up this stretch of coast.
Two of numerous little pools built around hot springs in the sea.
Chum salmon and pollack the prize catches in these waters.
Back to camp; I think Orlaith kindly volunteered to ride the five-ish kilometres back to town to get dinner supplies. She did well as the fresh tomatoes, mushrooms along with pesto and chicken was one of our best camp meals yet. Certainly beats the dog roll in Mongolia!
Although my snap doesn’t seem to have done it justice.
Sleep, well – attempted sleep, the closest we got to Russia – only twenty-five kilometres across the water to Kunashiri Island.