Blogs from Hokkaido, Japan, Asia - page 11

Wednesday-Day Five I got up at 9am to do TaiChi on the basketball court on deck 13, Martin is not a well boy and slept on after his big gambling night. We are sailing to Sapporo today and will get there at 4pm. Its overcast and I can actually feel some motion underneath me. Today I shared a breakfast table with a German couple. There are so many nationalities on board, the largest group being Australians and also large groups from Korea, Singapore, and HongKong. But we have met people from Lithuania, Armenia, Holland, Brazil, England, China, Japan, Spain, USA, Thailand, France. This is the fifth day on the ship and only today did I discover Cafe Promenade on the fifth floor, part of what I call the main street. I knew that you ... read more

Day 14 Iwaobetsu to Abashiri. Simple buffet breakfast with soup, toast, cold noodles in mayonnaise, yoghurt and a few unknowns. Sunny and high 20's again - not complaining. Out of the door and straight up the hill for 2 miles at 7%. This was followed by a descent back to the coast, which we followed for 20 miles. The first town of Utoro was very nice with a fishing harbour and large brown rocks standing in the sea near the coast. It reminded me of the East coast at Scarborough and Whitby. Along the way there were also some quite good waterfalls streaming down into the sea, one spectacular one called Oshin Koshin. Cormorants were also seen basking on rocks close by and waiting for a bite to eat. I managed to get quite a good ... read more

Day 12 Rausu Hot again this morning with blue sky and a need for serious sun cream application. 32 degrees C on the road with a little breeze. Reasonably flat run but still climbed 490 m in 72 miles and burnt 1,200 calories. As we headed East towards the coast a mist settled in which felt like drizzle at one point. At 11.30 the sun came out again and the temperature back up to 30 as we followed the coast North to our destination of Rausu, which is as far as the continuous road goes. The coast is full of fishing villages and kelp farmers, who leave large nets out at sea for the kelp to attach to then winch them in. We decided to go another 15 miles up the coast to the end of ... read more

Abashiri to Lake Kussahoro. The forecast for today was correct. 6am was brilliant sunshine which turned to rain by 7 and visibility down to 200m. Is it to be sun cream or goose grease today? Everyone is ready to go and get it over with, although it is warmer than Lancashire rain - I hope. Since no one wants to mess with maps in the rain we all follow Peter, who has Ken's Garmin loaded with the route. It is a miserable start on busy roads with tramlines holding loads of water, which we threw up at ourselves with our mudguardless bikes or the traffic threw it at us from the side. None of these was nice. The rain eased off slightly as the morning wore on and it was acceptable, even when we hid under ... read more

Shiobetsu to Lake Saroma Day 7. Sunday. Not as far to go today with just 42 miles and a paltry climb of 200m to Lake Saroma near the coast, which is the largest lake in Hokkaido, producing a large array of fish; oyster, scallops and shrimp etc. Not fish again for tea. The lake is actually salt water since it has a narrow channel out to sea and has a fishing harbour with scores of boats in regular use. The ride was a slight downhill for the first 10 miles and luckily without those bad joints across the road, every 20 metres, which we had on the hills the past few days. We passed many farms, both arable and dairy, which appeared quite prosperous with newish buildings, tractors and equipment. One dairy farm had about 50 ... read more