When we were coming to Hokkaido, we expected a lot of beautiful nature. What we saw since we arrived, is beyond expectations. Hokkaido's nature is incredible, it's everywhere, it's pure, this is probably a good example of what a sustainable natural world would look like. In that sense, it compares to places like Norway or Sweden, New Zealand, Tasmania (and probably several other places we don't know - yet) with a lot of unspoilt nature and little population. We're so happy we did the effort to come all the way up north! It's also clear that this natural environment has an impact on society. There are many campgrounds here, cheap, well maintained, in beautiful parks. While in other parts of Japan you could sense that sometimes people found it weird that we traveled on bicycles and camped, it's perfectly normal here and people clearly like it. Living and being active outdoors is appreciated here, that's clear.
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Breakfast at our campsite, while the tent is spread out to dry (wet from the morning dew)
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| Scenery on our way, you just can't stop marvel at it |
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| Snowy mountains, the Japanese have purposely put arrows on the road so you wouldn't miss it |
Our day yesterday was very very nice, almost perfect except someone had switched on the headwind the whole day. We had a bit of climbing followed by a long descent through a valley with hardly any signs of human life, then suddenly saw high mountains in the distance, still with patches of snow on them. While the second half of the day was more through cultivated areas, it was still incredibly beautiful, with those mountains and gradually Daisetsuzan national park and mountain range in view. This included the (heavily) smoking volcano, Mt Tokachi, an active volcano that last erupted less than 20 years ago. We cycled through Furano, a tourist centre, and visited the Furano cheese factory; not so much for the cheese, but for a delicious ice cream! We ended our 77km cycling day in Kamifurano, in another nice and cheap campground, even with showers this time. It's the first campground with lots of campers, we were not camping alone (at all) for once!
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| The first glimpse of Mt Tokachi |
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| Our tent with Mt Tokachi in the background |
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| The real highlight of yesterday: we reached the incredible 10.000km mark!!! We celebrated this with a little dance, some cries of joy, a big hug, a high five and a bottle of red wine in the evening! |
And while yesterday was already very nice, today was incredible, it was one of those triple wow days, great from start to end, with many wow and goosebump moments. We had chosen to take the long and high way from Furano to Biei, rather than the easy road in the valley - the things you do to celebrate the 10.000km mark. It meant we had to climb about 800m, much of which was a very nice and gradual climb but the last 4-5km were steep and heavy; probably one of the toughest climbs we have done in terms of continued steepness. Once we were up there, above 1000m asl, it was magnificent however. It started by a stop at a natural onsen. Just some rock pools with hot springs next to a small river, in the middle of the forest. Perfect to relax for a while after the 17km climb. The views were incredible, and just a few km further from the onsen we had some wow wow wow nearby views of the Tokachi volcano, where you could now see that smoke was coming out of the mountain just about everywhere. Meanwhile, we still saw snowy mountains everywhere and a beautiful valley too, and you just didn't have enough eyes to see it all and take it all in.
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| Empty street in the morning - in fact, we haven't had much traffic most of the day |
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| Up above 1000m |
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| Happy to arrive after the tough 17km climb |
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| Part of the reward: coffee break before soaking our bones in the onsen |
The ride down was a great pleasure, more than 25km downhill! We stopped for lunch, and a bit later to visit the blue lake, one of the major tourist attractions in the area. To our big surprise, there were bus loads (literally) of tourists at the (small) blue lake, not expected. After that touristy but nice stop, we rolled down the mountain to arrive in Biei and get ourselves a well deserved ice coffee. Biei itself is famous for the farmlands in the area, nice fields of wheat and other crops on gently rolling hills - yes, agriculture becoming a tourist attraction and admittedly it looked very nice too! What a fantastic day this was!!! We arrived at a campsite a few before getting to Asahikawa, and set up camp. Time for camp kitchen this time - time for pasta - but first finish our bottle of wine. The only negative of this day: the bottle was empty much too soon. Hahaha, no: this place is totally infested by mosquitoes! We ate our dinner, and then fled into our tent as it was just impossible to stay outside...
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| Mt Tokachi on the way down |
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| The blue lake |
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| Biei farmlands |
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| Biei farmlands |
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| Beautiful farmlands indeed, especially with such backdrop! |
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| The end - of a wonderful day! |