Warming up in Hokkaido: Part 1

After sitting in a school staff room for many hours during the last two years and thinking about cycle touring, it felt great to finally be on a plane and about to embark on a 4-week trip around Hokkaido, Japan's northern most main island. And when one of the ANA air hostesses, on hearing about my intended plan, randomly presented me with a bag full of in-flight snacks, saying as she did so "You will be lonely by yourself. Please take this", I smiled and took it as a good omen for the days ahead.

        Out of the airplane window the green, golden and brown patchwork of fields reminded me more of home than the Japan I'd been living in. It looked like I'd have some flat roads to get my legs in touring shape - a welcome change from the hills I was surrounded by in Kyushu. But getting on the bike and cycling away from the airport wasn't going to be as simple as I'd hoped. I'd deflated my tyres for the flight, but gone and forgotten a small piece of plastic, which acts as an adaptor on my pump to change the valve fittings. What a great start to a cycling trip - a bike with two flat tyres!
         It's amazing what lengths the Japanese go to in the name of customer service however. Much smiling and apologising in my most polite of Japanese at the airport information desk, baffling and probably scaring the two female assistants as I demonstrated the problem with my bicycle pump, soon produced a team of green bolier-suited men - four in total. When they realised nothing could be done they ran off and returned in an airport truck, into the back of which went my bike and we all headed off to the nearest bike shop. An hour later (unbelievably at no cost for the services rendered) I was ready to go. Never I thought to myself would that kind of help be found at a British airport. Perhaps they were all cursing the "stupid gaijin" once I'd left.

View from the aeroplane

Tyres pumped and ready to go

I'd learnt from my bike trip around Kyushu last year that many roads in Japan, at least inland from the sea, are often mountainous, which is unsurprising for a country with so many volcanoes. I therefore decided I'd be sensible and predominantly stick to the coast for this trip.
        Away from the airport and off the main highway it's amazing how much quieter the roads in Hokkaido are to the rest of Japan, which was one of the main reasons I'd come. Cycling to a campsite marked on my map I almost forgot which country I was in. There were farmyards with cows, and lush flat green fields with race horses. The absence of mountains also made the cycling easy, although this didn't really help following the late departure from the airport. I somehow took the wrong road (cycling 50km when the campsite was only 25km from the airport) and mis-underestimated the fact that it gets darker earlier in Hokkaido than further south in Japan.

        Pitching my tent in the dark amidst swarms of hungry mosquitoes seemed to provide welcome amusement to a fellow Japanese camper, whom I also noted had a bicycle. It was a little unnerving as he stood so close and watched me erect my tent whilst brushing his teeth, but I thought it was an ideal first chance for some comradery between two cyclists. I ventured a few simple questions in Japanese, to which came mumbled responses, and then shone the torch towards his face and asked him how old he was. "Ju ni san" he said - twelve. I decided to climb inside my tent away from the mosquitoes and get an early first night.

        Cycling along the coastal road and heading south east towards Cape Erimo (noted in my guidebook for its "dramatic ocean views" and sightings of kuril seals) I saw few other touring cyclists, but soon became accustomed to the friendly wave or thumbs up from passing motorcyclists. Hokkaido is something of a "touring mecca" in the summer months for Japanese motorcyclists, who embark from ferries originating in Tokyo and Osaka for some open roads and a chance to explore Japan's wild albeit safe nature. Zooming past me on the road there was a welcome "otsukare sama desu"(well done for your efforts) comradery between visitors to the island who'd chosen to come on two wheeled transport.

        The coastal road may have been mostly flat, but it wasn't much fun cycling against a headwind towards the cape, and I wondered if my random decision to cycle anti-clockwise around the island was a bad one. The sky was also grey for those first few days and seemed to blend in with the small, isolated and drab-like fishing villages I passed, where kelp was being hauled from the sea and left to dry on beds of flat colourless stone beside the seashore. This would be a common sight along all of Hokkaido's coastline.

         As I reached the cape, a thick mist had blown in from the sea. This made my efforts cycling on a minor road which led out to the tip seem rather pointless. There would be no dramatic scenery nor kuril seal sightings on that particular day. After cycling 240km I had yet to see the sun in Hokkaido.

Kelp drying on the shoreline

On the morning of the fourth day however things changed. I met my first foreign cyclist, heading in the opposite direction, whose rather overloaded bike and several months worth growth of facial hair suggested he'd been on the road longer than I had. An English conversation after 5 days was refreshing, and to be told that my intended but less common route around the island would actually be with a tailwind for most of the way, was like being told that the sun would finally come out, which is just what it did.
        But that wasn't until I'd cycled along what a motorcyclist had told me was named the 'Golden road'. It sounded mysterious and intriguing - a road with some architectural treasures perhaps. Well I suppose the Japanese construction industry may see it that way. Tunnel after tunnel lined the coastal road on the eastern side of the cape I was cycling up - an engineering feat, at an exorbitant price no doubt - the longest of the 30 or so I cycled through being 4km long. They screened my view of the sea, but then cut out many roads with hills, which in a poorer country than Japan would certainly exist given the same mountainous terrain. Most were well lit, but the sound of a large truck - the noise of its engine amplifying and echoing through the tunnel as it approaches from 2km behind you, can be quite unsettling, particularly when you see the traffic on the other side of the tunnel move closer to the kerb to let it pass, dragging you along when it finally does so as it draws in air behind it. My confidence in the ability of Japanese drivers is quite high though - something that I feel will change once I start cycling in mainland Asia.
        Tunnel after tunnel however became quite featureless and boring, and I spontaneously decided to alter my route and head inland after my experience of Hokkaido's Golden Road.

        I had decided to treat my trip around Hokkaido as a warm-up for the less predictable and more challenging mainland Asia leg that I would embark on once departing from Japan. Indeed in a country with such developed infrastructure and relative safety, one is never far from a food outlet or a place with running water. Yet there I was after I encountered my first hills of the trip, with two empty water bottles and no obvious place to fill them up, as I cycled through an unpopulated expanse of agricultural fields - the only sign of habitation being small farmhouses some distance from the main road. And when I briefly stopped to take a photo, changing the camera's settings as I did so, I ended up deleting my first four days worth of photos. This was really frustrating, and after I finally managed to re-hydrate my body, I decided that a beer was badly in need of order.
        Now Japanese beer doesn't win any awards, but on my previous trip to Hokkaido I'd got a taste for the 'Sapporo' brand - the draft in particular, which isn't so widely available in Kyushu. And after four days of cycling few things beat the enjoyment of that first cold quench of beer. In fact there is no doubt that beer tastes better after cycling 120km in the heat than sitting and doing the same distance on a motorbike. Unfortunately I had to cycle 2km uphill, from where I drank the beer, to reach the campsite that evening.

Typical Hokkaido farm

Japan’s best beer.

Setting up camp

The weather would hold fine for the next several days as I made my way east towards Akan National Park, famous for its volcanic lakes and surrounding peaks. I expected some climbs - and got them, but nothing that a bit of effort and the use of a low gear couldn't overcome. I soon however discovered that the fresh smell of a gaijin sweating his way up a hill at 12km/h was often a great attraction for Hokkaido's insect population. In particular horse flies, whose ability to hover behind my back and between my legs, landing to take a bite as they avoided the swiping action of my bandana, was more than a little frustrating. But the beauty of the lakes and the surrounding peaks made all the efforts and minor irritations worth it.

One of the smaller lakes in Akan National Park.

Road through Akan National Park.

 I entered Akan Kohan at the end of my sixth day - a town nestled beside a pretty lake and a tourist hub from which to explore the NP. Large hotels with commanding views lined the lake shore and the streets were filled with the familiar array of souvenir shops selling wooden carvings, most of the prices of which far surpassed my 2000￥($20) average daily budget. Music was also being played from speakers somewhere in the town, and I followed the somewhat aboriginal-like sounds and came upon an Ainu village - glorifying in all its theme park-like appearance the indigenous peoples of Hokkaido.

The Ainu are Japan's main minority group, and their animist beliefs and traditional way of living, once shunned by the rest of Japan, is these days popularised in the form of 'Ainu villages', where tourists come to buy replicas of traditional hand-made goods. I guess it's a similar story amongst many minority populations the world over. I didn't stay very long.

Volcanic activity beside Lake Akan

Ainu culture theme park style.

Deer were common sightings in Hokkaido.

At the campsite in Akan Kohan I found some rare English language information about hiking in the National Park, and another spontaneous decision based on a good weather forecast led me to attempt a climb of Mt Oakan the next day, despite the campsite owner laughing when I pointed to my sandles I said I'd hike in. But that wasn't the last I sensed I was being laughed at as I made my way to the trail entrance early the next day and set off up the 1400 metre mountain, with my flimsy and light weight sandles on my feet and a pannier strewn across my back. For when Japanese hikers take to the hills one might think they were being sponsored by their local mountaineering shops. Carbon-graphite walking sticks, gloves, gore-tex clothing, GPS equipment - I felt a little unprepared as I passed groups with all their fancy apparel hiking towards the summit. But I had remembered my bear bell (a small bell with a very irritating sound that hikers attach to their backpacks) in the unlikely but possible event of meeting a brown bear. No such luck though.

At the summit of Mt Oaken

After the 3 hour climb, with spectacular views of the lake from the top, and the 2 hours to come back down, I decided to start cycling, upon hearing from another hiker that the road to the next town "was not so steep." A few hours later I was cursing that same hiker as I cycled what seemed like half the distance back up the mountain I'd just climbed. A simple rule of cycle touring - never trust information given to you about roads and distances from non-cyclists. A road with a 10% gradient feels rather different in a car compared to a saddle!

        I had two more large lakes to visit to complete my tour of Akan National Park. One lay at the bottom of a caldera surrounded by steep cliffs - its crystal clear waters apparently offering visible depths of up to 35 metres, and the other famed as a popular holiday destination for family campers.
         I think lakes hold a special attraction for many Japanese, at least far more than the sea, which is viewed with greater fear or reverence than the tranquility and safety of a lakeside setting, the calmness of which reflects a lot about the nation and its people in general.
        I could see however what made Lake Kusharo, the largest of the National Park's lakes, such a popular destination for camping. My lakeside camping spot was so beautiful in fact that I decided to stay for two nights. There were also two other reasons which meant that I would rest on my ninth day into the trip. One was the fact that my legs (after climbing Mt Oakan) had become so stiff that I felt I'd prematurely aged fifty years. The other was that there were two other foreign cyclists, something of a rarity, camping beside the lake too. Oh, and I ought to mention that cold beers were available within a two minute walk of my tent - something which easily tipped the limits of my planned daily budget.
        The only problem with the campsite was that it was busy, which meant the enticing smells of family BBQs on either side of me were stronger, and which made my usual mush-like rice creation seem woefully unappetising. I hoped that a few smiles and perhaps some interest and curiosity from my neighbours might create an invitation, but I settled for beers and conversation with the two other foreign cyclists. Random invitations, particularly when the said party is an unshaven gaijin, are somewhat uncommon in Japan. My optimism faded as the trip went on.

Lake Mashu

Lake Mashu, Akan National Park.

Forgot to mention Io-zan - smelly volcano in Akan National Park.

Sulphurous steam from the volcano.

Outside Onsen on Lake Kussharo

Camping beside Lake Kussharo.

 From Akan NP I cycled south, back to the coast and the city of Kushiro, foolishly pitching my tent beside a river which drains out of the largest marshland in Japan. I'd spent the day cycling past it, and would spend the night, at least regards putting the tent up, surrounded and being bitten by more mosquitoes than I think I've ever witnessed together in one place. It was unsurprising that the river bank was not an official campsite, it just appeared more preferable in the day time than spending 3000￥ ($30) on a Youth Hostel.

        With ankles swollen from all the previous night's bites I continued along the southern coast of Hokkaido and towards the nation's eastern most point. Sign posts started showing Russian translations as I cycled along Nemuro peninsula, which stretches out like an antennae towards the disputed northern territories, a chain of islands which were once Japanese, but since the war have been ruled and governed by Russia. It felt strange to be so close to a country that I'd always viewed as being closer to Europe than Japan. The landscape became bleaker - or maybe that's just how I wanted to envisage it, and much flatter. A sea mist shrouded my view of the islands, less than 20kms from cape Nosappu, but there was an informative museum, albeit with information almost entirely in Japanese, and some interesting photos and maps about the history of the disputed islands.

Fishing boats near Kushiro.

Morning mist at a busy campsite.

Monument at Cape Nossapu.

 A little further north, but still on the eastern coast of Hokkaido is another antennae-like peninsula, which juts out into the Sea of Okhotsk and was brought into the spotlight this year for being declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. My guidebook informed me that the Shiretoko peninsula I was about to cycle into is home to around 600 brown bears, and that visitors should assume they can appear at any time. But I wasn't going hiking, and the cynic in me questioned how much of the bear presence was over-played as a tourist lure.
My focus was on the road which led across the peninsula, my map showing an 18km long twisting route, which led from sea level up to 800 metres. This I had been told was quite a challenge to climb.

Coast towards Shiretoko National Park.