A nice dry warm hut is a hard place to leave in the morning, even if it isn’t raining any more. Nontheless, we manage to get on the road by 7.30am, and climb the dreaded hill up and away from the lake. Before our climb begins though, we see a sign giving distances to Bihoro and Bihorotoge…
A: What’s toge mean when it’s on the end of a place name?
B: Pass. As in mountain pass.
M: Oh. Ohhh. I did not wish to know that.
So we climbed to Bihorotoge, which was shrouded in cloud and containing a scary souvenir shop. I resisted the temptation to buy a Hello Kitty towel. With nothing much to hang around for, we descended the other side of the pass, then raced along the flat farmland to Bihoro.
At Bihoro there was the traditional 7-11 food stop, this time coupled with a visit to Mister Donut (where Alex got me a couple of mini donut-burgers, which were sickeningly cute, but very tasty). A hunt for internet took us to the Co-op, where more food was purchased as we sat online in the sun.
Finally we left Bihoro, cycling through the rolling hills and farmland towards the sea (the Sea of Okhotsk). Once we hit the coastline we cycled along a flat and boring stretch of coast, with all of the towns looking a bit beaten-up and run-down. There are no seagulls, only crows – obviously it’s fake coast. Our campground for the night in Koshimizu is a disused picnic shelter – we opt to cook there, then camp out on sleeping mats at the ‘observatory’ at the top of the hill next to us. It’s a sort of look out building, with a nice view of the coast, and the mountain range in the distance that we’re to cross tomorrow. I wake up at 3.30am to see a pink stripe in the sky to signify sunrise over the mountains, then fall back to a disturbed sleep.
Location: Lake Kussharo – Koshimizu, Hokkaido, Japan
Distance cycled: 87km