Our first hotel stay in Japan gave us our first hotel buffet breakfast in Japan. Always fun to see what food would be offered, and there was plenty. An unusual, to us, mix – but good cycling food, should at least get us the few wet kilometres to the ferry.

As if we were going home anytime soon.

Having negotiated the ferry ticketing rather wet, we got wetter waiting to board out in the open. But once on board, before the cars, we and our bikes were well looked after again and managed to dry out some on the short voyage to Honshu.

A little to look out as we left Hokkaido, but mostly a grey voyage to Honshu. We’d chosen to take the shorter route to Oma and ease into the fairly quiet looking northern peninsula – avoiding the city of Aomori.

Off the ferry, we found there had been other foreign cycle tourists on board – chatting pleasantly the short distance before going separate ways. But of course, we soon met some of them at the supermarket buying lunch. Charles and PJ from Brisbane had some interesting tales, and bikes, from their recent travels in Europe. Riding together, it was not far to the northern most point of Honshu and chance to lunch together and continue chatting.

Rachel and I moseyed on around the coast, already noticing Honshu looking more prosperous – far fewer abandoned buildings and general decay, at least in these parts.

At some stage Charles and PJ rejoined us; well, at different stages as they ride at different paces. Turned out Charles used to work in high hazard industries too, a rather out-of-place discussion about process safety (which I thought I’d left behind) ensued.

Popping over a few small hills to the town of Mutsu, the forecast poor weather hadn’t eventuated so extending our riding day we endured thirty kilometres of rather tedious main road as far as Yokohama town – by which time twilight and drizzle caught up with us.

The small supermarket was a bit different to what we were used to, but amply supplied we set off to find somewhere to camp – as the supposed campground a few kilometres before town didn’t eventuate. We found a great big park that was deserted and discreet enough to stealth camp in, success!

Concrete logs must have been unusual enough to snap a photo of.

Every so often one of us had reported public toilets with these unusual facilities in. Was quite a while before I saw one, there was one in this municipal park. It had been decided between us that the special sinks were for emptying ostomy bags. A bit of research shows that they’re more common than we came across – regularly in accessible facilities for those that need them.

Maybe not for washing camp dishes.

Up and away early from our stealth camping spot above the Seikan Tunnel. As the longest undersea rail tunnel in the world, unsurprisingly there was a museum with plenty of construction equipment around the outside – unfortunately we were well too early for it to be open.

Around the eastern side of the peninsula, the terrain is so rugged that even the Japanese have not built a road around it. So we had a small pass to go over, thankfully didn’t see any of the numerous bears around here – just some traps. We timed our descent well to see a shinkansen amble out of the tunnel – they don’t go full speed through.

More rugged terrain that we missed.

At the small station after the tunnel there was a pretty high viewing platform for the trainspotters.

Apparently one of the very few places you can see a freight train and shinkansen pass next to each other.

The vegetables in the store below were perhaps as impressive.

Definitely leaning into the shinkansen finally reaching Hokkaido around these towns.

Back to plains and good growing areas.

The air somewhat overpoweringly spring onion filled.

Unsure what is going on here.

Honshu getting closer…

Back to flat coastal biking, found a park of scale models near where a Dutch built, Japanese navy ship foundered on the just-offshore reef in the late nineteenth century.

More of the same, and something different – we detoured inland to the Trappist monastery pictured.

The long avenue approach one of the monastery’s attractions.

They also have a well regarded dairy onsite, so we joined the queue for very creamy ice creams on another hot day.

Back down to the coast.

Twenty kilometres of flat around the very semicircular Hakodate Bay wasn’t too bad for negotiating the city’s spread. Being distracted by a large, rambling old cement plant helped; well, helped me – I can’t imagine Rachel was particularly interested in where much of the concrete we’d seen all around Hokkaido’s otherwise natural environment had come from.

Into the city and we checked into a hotel for the night as there was rain forecast and we had a relatively early ferry to get to in the morning.

Unsure what these were about, but not chimney sweeps. Coloured covers were always a welcome find in our continued documentation of the interesting local designs on mundane service covers.

We easily found the bike shop that had been recommended back in Sapporo, time for a bit of light servicing. Great bike shop and friendly staff, sounded like there was a bit of a gravel riding scene around – not that we’d seen any gravel for a long time.

I was pleased to find some more orange accessories for my bike too.

This bell was particularly useful for the rest of the trip – Japanese, not too loud, robust and easy to use. I was disappointed to not find them later in the trip to take some home for my nephews.

While our bikes were at the shop, a little walking around the city and down to the waterfront.

Not the ferry we would be taking in the morning. Now a floating museum, it was a large ship from the days before the Seikan tunnel opened.

Back at the bike shop, we asked for recommendations for dinner – particularly Hokkaido soup curry that we’d heard much about but hadn’t tried yet. Happily there was a good place just around the block.

Little bit different to where we usually ate.

Also different for spice offerings – scale of one to fifteen unusual. Supposed spicy food had not been hot so far in Japan, so I opted for regular.

Black ink squid soup curry – easily one of the best meals I had in Japan. Although Regular spice was a misjudgement – it was very hot in both temperature and spice!

Just a street of concrete super heroes on the way back to the hotel.

That was our last full day in Hokkaido, a great place to tour for the scenery and all manner of food grown there; but I was keen to get to Honshu and some older Japanese history, architecture and general vibe.

A bit of time looking around the reservoir and over to the village’s ski slope before dropping through the hills to ride stop banks along the Shiribeshi-Toshibetsu River.

More matchstick logs.

Intrigued by this spiral bridge as we rode into Imakane – a relatively small town. Perhaps there is some big industry up there?

I’m still intrigued by this outsized bridge. Further research shows it’s the southernmost loop bridge in Hokkaido, but only services a few small farms up the valley (probably some forestry too) – but there is an alternative route. Seems complete overkill for a problem that didn’t really exist – and some reviewers seem to agree.

A pitstop in Setana for lunch supplies.

This led us back to a road beside the Sea of Japan – no longer designated a national route, it was super quiet.

More moving of large concrete shapes – nephews would be right into that.

More long tunnels cutting out the climbing for us – up to four kilometres long. Distinct lack of traffic meant both that they weren’t deafening, and we could test out the echo qualities.

Okushiri Island – would have been nice to visit, but didn’t fit into our schedule.

We found signs to a shrine three hundred metres above the road. The first staircase was imposing enough, thankfully neither of us fell trying to negotiate it. We decided against the more precarious iron chain route beyond the stairs.

Shrine that we didn’t get to way up there somewhere.

Along the coastal road finally we found some rock formations that looked like the things that they were named after.

Although I’ve forgotten which this was.

But we could certainly see the bear and cub in Parent and Child.

Even made it to the manhole cover.

The cliffs started to get rather photogenic too; the basalt columns particularly interesting.

They also made it to the local manhole cover.

Towards the end of the day, some punchy little hills kept our tired legs working. In one small coastal village, we came across what passes for a commotion in Japan – a lot of people standing on the side of the road looking into the forest for a bear that had just been seen. With all bear attacks over the summer, it was hardly surprising that everyone was a little on edge.

Into Esahi for the night.

Looking over to Kamome Island, no longer an island but home to a campground.

Kaiyomaru – a replica of a Dutch-supplied ship that sank in 1868. The wreck was discovered over a hundred years later and many artefacts now fill the replica.

After struggling up a steep road to Esahi town proper and getting supplies, a quick roll back down and across to the island – before a steep push up to see what this campground’s quirks were.

It was large, with another lighthouse, outdoor stage and plenty of sites to choose from. We chose one with a view over the Sea of Japan, set-up and enjoyed a spectacular sunset to cap one of our longer distance days in Japan – little climbing though. Possibly the best free campground we stayed at.