For the past 3 days, we mostly rode east along the R39, from Asahikawa to Abashiri. A very nice ride! The first 100-ish km from Asahikawa were very slight uphill, a bit steeper towards the end. Eventually, we built up more than 1000m elevation and you then get a nice long gradual descent afterwards. All this was through the magnificent Daisetsuzan park, a park full of snow capped mountains, wild rivers, and incredible green forests. It's also home to a large number of huge higuma - the Hokkaido brothers of the grizzly bear. We saw some stuffed examples, rather harmless luckily, these guys are absolutely huge (up to 2m20) and you don't want to encounter them in the wild by chance... In any case, we had another 2 wonderful days riding. Today was a bit less, just rather boring and flat cycling from Onneyueonsen to Abashiri.
 |
| Between Asahikawa and Sounkyo there is a nice bicycle trail, for a long time on a dedicated trail following the Ishikari river! |
 |
| And it's really pleasant cycling with amazing views |
In Sounkyo things didn't really quite work as planned. First of all, this was where we really wanted to stay 2 or 3 nights in a nice place, and explore Daisetsuzan national park a bit more. Our nice place wasn't that nice. It was a kind of homestay, but we had a smelly room (cigarette smoke!), the place was messy and a bit tasteless, and had no wifi - now, that is something I'd be happy with on a normal holiday, but while touring for a long time and camping most of the time, you need that wifi from time to time to blog, catch up on mails, plan your further route, etc... The people were incredibly friendly and their food was nice, but it was not the kind of place to stay for another few nights. It was also still more than 7 km before the town itself, so we decided to move to the town. When we arrived there, we went to the visitor centre, and found out that the main trails in the park were still closed; because of snow! Ah, that changed everything. No point to stay for another night. The Sounkyo campsite was also closed. And then there was a nice cycling trail alongside a long tunnel, through the Sounkyo gorge. Also closed... So in the end, we just left, and had a wonderful day of cycling, but not the days in the park as intended.
 |
| Impressive waterfalls thundering down the gorge in Sounkyo |
 |
| Road with lake and mountain view |
 |
| At the mountain pass, at 1050m, after gently climbing most of the previous 100km. Many signs here feature a cute bear, but in reality they don't seem so cute! |
 |
| Another nice and natural campsite |
We camped for another night after 78km beautiful cycling, at a nice and free campsite at Onneyueonsen. There were a few other campers, 3 on motorbikes and 3 other tour bikers. We had a relax evening, it was quite cold so we stayed inside the tent. It was another beautiful and warm sunny day today however, although this evening it became cold with a really chilly wind, and there is rain forecast for tomorrow... We had easy cycling today, and another small bike repair: my front gear cable was snapping and I got it changed - there was a bicycle shop around the corner by coincidence so I preferred them to take care of it rather than do it myself. We don't know yet if we'll stay here 1 or 2 nights, it'll depend on the rain tomorrow...
 |
| I hardly made any pictures today; this is one showing today's main view: onion fields! |