A nice sleep-in had us on the road at the incredibly early hour of 10am or so (after being fed coffee by the nice man at the campground).
It rained on us occasionally, and we rode along nice sweeping roads, through farmland, and into hillier terrain. We met our first tunnel, and were pleasantly surprised by how polite the traffic was – even though the speed limit was only 50km/hr, everyone was giving us at least half a lane of space.
Lots of cuckoos and cicadas around, and rivers, bridges, and workmen with flags (it would be so easy to pose as a construction worker in Hokkaido, all you’d need is a red flag and a white flag). In the afternoon we started working our way uphill, and were rewarded with a long and sweeping downhill, sitting on the speed limit (40km/hr) and flying down the smooth deserted road.
We found our campsite at around 5.30pm, after finding a large tyrannasaurus rex, and a Japanese cycle tourist. We noted the large warning signs about bears in the area, then not long after going to bed we heard crashing about in the bushes next to our bikes. We carefully unzipped the tent and stuck our head round the corner… good, whatever it was, it was hidden by the bikes. Couldn’t be too big. We pointed our headlamps about for a better look, and finally caught sight of a foxy tail. Aha! Cheeky fox! We chased him away, and tied our food bags up in a tree. Going back to bed we heard the fox crash back up to the bikes again, then crash away empty handed.
Location: Hayakita – Lake Katzurazawa, Hokkaido, Japan
Distance cycled: 92km