Morning visitor; better outside the tent, as with all other creatures.
Long gravel descent to start, extra layer on as a strangely cool start. Few light showers through the day too, but mostly the standard hot and humid.
This stretch first up another highlight of the Japan riding, following a creek down to a sealed road by which time it had become more of a river.
Used to sunflowers being tall…
But rawan buki was a new one. A large field, with a pleasant path through it, of these single stem plants with a broad leaf on top towered over us.
Roadside cheer squad?
Our forty-odd kilometre descent finished in the town of Ashoro, where we lingered for a couple of hours. Found some rawan buki on soft serve ice cream – yum! Pleasantly, not overly, sweet green jelly. The town really leaning into the plant, the manhole covers pictured it and there were plenty of banners around – with a cartoon creature of the plant. The visitor centre used to be the station, but the railway long since closed – pleasingly there was a bit of a display to show some of the history. It looked like we might be following some of the old line later in the day.
With about four hundred metres to gain to Nukabira, we mostly avoided the (admittedly quiet) highways. Steeper in parts than the gentle valley we’d descended earlier, there were enough down sections to get our climbing legs working again later to regain the lost elevation.
Still finding some nice gravel.
Starting to see some old rail infrastructure.
Nukabira is a small town at the end of an inlet at the foot of the lake its named after, sloping up a few streets towards a couple of ski lifts. Very quiet it was, unsure if it still sees much activity in the snow season. Not even a Seicomart, we scrabbled together enough ingredients for an interesting dinner. We had a huge campground all to ourselves; well, as far as other humans went:
More campground companions, about eight centimetres long.
I found a small rail museum in the tiny old station and enjoyed poking around that just before it closed – lots of old maintenance and operational items. Seemed the rail line was mostly there to service forestry. There was a bit of walking to be done from the campground – down to the lake, more old rail bridges and we found another public foot spa in an open area.
Farewell to the Ezo Rider house, a great spot a day off the bike. (Learnt much later that Ezo is an old word for Hokkaido.)
That’s a different way of loading logs on a truck, don’t think I’d ever see the like in NZ
Occasional peaks of mountains off in the distance. The closest one being Mt Oakan, the volcano which formed the caldera lake Akan.
Another abandoned building, just past the road summit – an old roadhouse, or visitor centre? Nice to stop for a bit.
Long galleria to break up the arboreal view.
Numerous onsen and places we stayed had large bookcases filled with graphic novels and other printed materials. Not much use to us, but pretty cool to see.
Despite the rain, it was still hot – so a iced tea in the air conditioned visitor centre overlooking forest was the ticket.
First public foot spa we’d seen – pleasingly, not uncommon on rest of the trip.
Venison for lunch for me (certainly enough deer around), Rachel had oyudon (a chicken and egg, or is that egg and chicken, dish) – which she was still salivating over weeks later.
Fairly typical izakaya. Some seats at the bar, some tables with cushions for sitting on at a raised platform.
Sneak peak of Mt Io and Lake Kussharo, showing further signs of volcanic activity.
New friends in the toilet block – which is not where one really wants to meet new friends.
Start of the trail to Mounts Mashu and Nijibetsu – no hiking for us today though.
I was surprised to see a sibling of my gravel bike (RLT9) – the bike I planned to ride around Japan, until I decided to go Mongolia too. It belonged to Jen (Xian?), a Chinese American who we kept bumping into over the next week.
Jen’s photo.
We very quickly lost those five hundred metres.
Our stuffed bear numbers now thankfully far surpassing our live bear views.
As well as throwback pedallos, this beach had hot water – one could make little pools or just warm feet in the sand.
Easy going road.
Started out a gentle path.
Fascinated by woodpeckers, although most of why is lost in a snapshot.
Still more geothermal activity.
The crowds started to thin as the afternoon approached its end.
Trying to fit in back at the rider house.