A late start with several cups of tea deliberating over having a full rest day due to heavy forecast rain or chancing it because outside it was improving. Eventually we left the rider house riding rural roads around the base of Mt Yotei.

A big parking lot at Kyogoku lead to popular paths around steamy hot springs fed by water under Yotei. Rather atmospheric.

Surprised to see some Mongolian wool products at one of the stalls.

Continuing south, more rich farming land – immaculate dairy farms, cropping (carrots ready to harvest were tempting).

Into Rusutsu for lunch, and a slight detour so Rachel could see the resort town she visited thirteen years before for a ski holiday. The large amusement park, part of it inside a hotel, the most notable feature to my eyes in summer.

A town for my brother-in-law, it seems.

Outside cows!

Somewhere along the way, a michi no eki (large roadside services complex without fuel, often selling a lot of local produce and wares – we frequently visited these) helped us stock up on dinner bits.

Every so often in Japan the road marked on our maps would turn out to be a track – this was usually a welcome change.

This was one of the good ones, a steep easy descent to Lake Toya.

A flat quiet road around the lake towards our campground.

The campground was a beauty – right on the lake, big deciduous trees and a little bit going on.

We’d managed to stay reasonably dry all day, so didn’t tempt fate and got the tents up pronto. The various ingredients we’d collected throughout our riding made another great dinner.

Not much hanging around drinking tea into the night as the rain soon arrived. It bucketed down for much of the night, small streams running down to the lake everywhere and I found that the seam sealing of my tent wasn’t quite up to scratch in a couple of places – but my sleeping gear and me stayed dry.

A very easy day due to a lot of rain forecast later. No rush to leave though, so I poked around the abandoned hotel next door before we wandered the geothermal area that fed last night’s onsen. Also a new visitor centre just up the road, so spent some time there chatting to the woman, who happened to be an intrepid bike tourer.

Onsen on the right, Rachel and I each had respective halves to ourselves the previous night – not a busy place.

Mt Niseko visible at times – a popular ski area, Rachel having skied there on one of her previous trips to Japan.

A very quiet, smooth and leisurely descent on little more than lanes. Cute town signs to be seen.

Passing a lot of ski villages and runs, we were soon in Kutchan – a bit of a service town. After limited supplies cooking dinner the previous night, we spent a lot of time in town replenishing our reserves.

Best tea in a cafe, for my tastes, yet. Better than our go-to teabags for camping – if I ever return to Japan, must remember to take decent tea.

Also found a huge second-hand gear store – this would be a great place to come if over skiing. Plenty of other sports, clothes and household items covered too.

It was good to be able to shop at a supermarket for a change, this one with a huge array of prepared meals. No cooking for us tonight.

Didn’t take me long to get used to raw fish, so good.

Do love my saddle-bag for its surge capacity.

Only a few kilometres south out of town to a new rider house us pushed over a massive twenty kilometres for the day. Now that it was September, the campground and rider house were empty – so we had great facilities all to ourselves. This would often be the case for the following two months, but it did mean a lot of places weren’t open. Not that that stopped us. The rain arrived in force, but we were safely inside and doing chores by then. What a strangely short day.

Only a little, ten kilometres, of the rugged coastline left to start our day.

Old glass buoys as lampshades, or made to look so.

As we turned inland towards the floodplain, we passed Japan’s first nuclear power station – but it was rather hidden behind the last of the cliffs – one of which we rode through. But there was no missing the visitor centre – which was surprisingly open at nine-thirty on a Sunday.

Even bigger than some of the abandoned hotels we’d seen.

Well, this is different.

I enjoyed poking around the various science and engineering displays, trying to remember what I’d once known about such things – didn’t want to bore Rachel too much by staying too long though.

Some of the interactive displays were impressive.

What we’d not seen hidden away.

Definitely pushing the boundary of our “visitor centre” interpretation – and we didn’t even go to the large heated swimming pool.

Friendly Mr Fission?

Getting a bit ridiculous now, the more we walked around and found still more.

To Kyowa town for lunch and supplies – back to rice fields, and with views of the Niseko range.

Happy guy.

We got distracted by the local history museum, which was also large considering the size of the town we eventually found. A lot of the foyer seemed to be given over to many scarecrows from a local festival (which we’d missed by a fortnight) – most of them were alarming to some degree.

Suspiciously like Mr Fission in disguise.

A bit of smelting history caught my eye.

We’d not seen much reference to the Pacific War in places we’d visited so far, so this was surprising.

Lunch inside a non-chain convenience store was some respite from the heat before we started climbing. First through a little farmland before joining the Niseko Panorama Line. It’d been a while since we’d been in the hills, so our longest climb for over a week was a good change. Even the heat changed when a lot of cloud rolled in, cooling things down pleasantly.

Got a bit of a look a the power plant as we climbed.

The coast down which we’d ridden in the previous day.

Shortly before the pass, there were a series of walking tracks to and around some rather lovely wetlands on a series of boardwalks. The sun came out at times, it rained at times and for a while it did both. Very pleasant to linger and watch the dragonflies and general changes in the weather.

Back at the parking lot, it was time for a big sando and Calpis.

Near the pass, there were a series of tracks through the hillside – making it look even more like teafields.

Fun descent for a couple of hundred metres lost, before turning off and regaining some of that altitude.

Into a very quiet Niseko Goshiki Onsen, some more big abandoned hotels to wonder about.

But there was an immaculately kept, unattended campground. We were the only ones camping, a couple of vehicles overnight in the parking lot.

Another big kitchen shelter to ourselves, mostly.

Over the road at the onsen, we also had our respective halves to ourselves – nice soak up in the mountains before heading back for tea and bed on a misty night.

Wet misty morning to decamp in. There sure were a lot of moths around through the night.

Some stuck around.

And some were brighter than others.

Caught up with our mates from the previous night, breakfast under their shelter. Turns out all the seats in their kei car fold flat to create a sleeping platform – not nearly as cramped as I imagined.

The photo from fifty years ago at this very beach that the guys were revisiting.

I was surprised when they pulled out what Mum would call a jaffle iron, of which one is a larger part of my childhood memories than it probably should be. Haven’t seen them used for grilling cheese on a single slice of bread.

Time for goodbyes.

The road leaving the coast due to the terrain, it was no surprise that we had a decent climb straightaway. Ten kilometres in the hills, the vegetation was dense and damp; still not cold though.

Dropping to a coastal town, we took a steep detour to some short walks high above the sea – good cliffs and a lighthouse for Orlaith, although she was back in NZ by now.

Back down to town.

A little walk away from the crowds, got some good views but didn’t have enough time to finish it.

Spotted this barge travelling around the coast; little did we know we’d shadow each other around the coast intermittently for the rest of our time on Hokkaido.

Through a teeny-tiny tunnel to the most popular viewing area. We started to see some of the famed Shakotan Blue – the crystal clear waters around the peninsula.

Back to sea urchins; dramatic cliffs seem to be the other symbol of this township.

Back at the carpark, this just seems how some dogs travel in Japan.

Not too early for an ice cream from the small store.

Can’t take the quieter, older route out of town this time.

Up to the big parking lot at Shakotan Peninsula, good time for lunch while our tents dried in the sun. Unfortunately the walks were closed around the peninsula end to the lighthouse as a bear had been spotted a couple of days beforehand.

Back to pretty flat riding along the spectacularly rugged coast. Although we probably only saw half of the coast up close, as after a particularly destructive typhoon some twenty years earlier a lot of the highway was routed through the hills in long tunnels.

Between two tunnels, we happened upon two men – one a kayaking fisherman who’d forgotten his fishing rod, and the other a cycle tourist trying to fix a punctured tube. Eventually we worked out that they were father and son. After giving the son a patch for his tube, off we went starting to look for any store we might buy things for dinner – there weren’t many along here.

In this town we found a small store and got some basics, as well as cold drinks. A cute dragon began to appear on the lamp posts.

More old road that we couldn’t take.

To make up for it, the causeway was spectacular.

Found the dragon again – the local mascot, as the indigenous Ainu people recognised the area for its ruggedness and danger.

We found more local produce in the market at the information centre, as well as bumping into father and son again – this time finding that mother was driving a support vehicle.

A shorter day of riding coming to a close as there was a popular spot for camping right there, and no better options further on. Can’t say I’ve camped on sea defences before, but plenty of people were car-camping so it must have been ok.

It had a sweet island to walk to, with its own enclosed saltwater pool.

The family from earlier turned up! The son stayed the night, the parents later driving home.

No country for pegs. But our tents stayed up ok.

Finally father, and son, got out for a fish.

We enjoyed a swim in the little pool.

Suddenly Rachel was going out to sea!

Slightly different campsite to normal.

Before long, it was my turn to sit on top of the kayak and go out for a look. Around the rocks for a bit, the water wonderfully clear and warm there was plenty to see in the slight swell.

Another excellent day drawing to a close, still very hot.

Amusingly I seemed to have got one of my worst photos to help remember the best camp meal of our four months touring. With tofu (who knew?!), mappu sauce and fresh local cherry tomatoes and soba noodles. Yum! We never quite reached this inadvertently obtained standard again, alas.