👟 Weekly Summary

It’s been a long week, looking back at last Monday’s run, and it seems far further away than just seven days.

Monday: Our first big mileage day, 61 km done. We started by backtracking to the Catbus from My Neighbour Totoro before making our way to a late-Jomon period stone circle. It wasn’t the most impressive stone structure I’ve seen. Still, I’m always fascinated to think that there were people 3,000 years ago, standing in that same spot, doing whatever it was they were doing (to be honest, the stone circle looked like a great fire pit for camping). We kept going, and passed where we could have camped at around 4pm, but it was a beautiful evening, with clear skies, and it felt a shame to waste it at a campsite, especially as we’d had another campsite recommended to us another 21 km down the road. So on we continued, perhaps pushing a little far for my legs at the moment, but by eight thirty we were camped next to a little lake, and near an onsen for a hot soak.

Tuesday: An early start to attempt to cover the 50km to Sapporo before the hotel check-in at three. The start was perfect, we opened the tent door to be met with clear blue skies reflecting off the lake beside us. We then had a good start for the first half, stopping at a little roadside Italian restaurant that had been recommended to us. The pasta tasted great, but the portions were too small to fuel our run, so we ended up grabbing even more convenience store food. The second 25 kilometres were not so fun. My right shin was now rather painful, and I just got slower and slower, limping into our hotel just after four. We did our usual hotel things - laundry, charging things, making the most of the wifi, before going out to find food. We settled on some curry soup, which is a Hokkaido speciality and was far and away the best meal we’ve had since we arrived. Joy was quite disappointed not to stay another day in Sapporo just to go back. (I, of course, had a Sapporo Classic beer with my curry soup.)

Wednesday: Just under 32km, but after my shin swelling up the day before, and Joy’s first real uphills on the bike, we thought it best to stick to a shorter day rather than attempt the whole of Nakayama Pass in one attempt. We left Sapporo after a good coffee and a tasty cheese on toast, before getting distracted by a bakery, then a place that did a good steak. After lunch, we started the ups and downs. It was slow going, but beautiful scenery with the trees hinting at autumn coming. We then decided against the very expensive campsites in the area and chose to wild camp just outside Jozankei. It was a lovely spot, not too late, and would have been a great place to rest, until Joy accidentally formatted the drive with all our videos in, putting us in panic mode for the rest of the evening as I started the recovery process.

Thursday: After a rather restless night, we decided to book a hotel 41 km away in Kimobetsu to aid with some of the data recovery. We knew there was a lot of uphill, and with Joy needing support pushing the Brompton, we set off early. I’d expected us to get to the top around 12, but we arrived by 10.30 after a rather fun morning of being escorted carefully through a tunnel by the roadworkers, who wanted to make sure we were safe. One worker ran 500m into the tunnel with us, before we were met by another who ran the second 500m. We stopped for a roadside lunch before making our way down to the convenience store by the hotel. There, we met a couple of cyclists from Seattle who were cycling the length of Japan. It was great to chat to someone else on an adventure, although they are much faster than we are, so we won’t bump into them again on this journey. We then went to our hotel to start the data recovery process while admiring the evening view of Mt Yotei.

Friday: Only 30 km today. We left our hotel late, still trying to recover all the lost data. Immediately stopped for breakfast, then stopped at a shrine, then bumped into one of the drone-footage guys from day 1, making it an incredibly slow start to the day. I’d like to say we sped up, but we didn’t. Instead, Joy had a puncture. We couldn’t find it at first, and resorted to reinflating the tyre periodically until we got to a place we could sort the puncture properly. Joy did a great job patching it before we made our way to an onsen overlooking Mt Yotei for a much-needed soak. When we got out, we found Joy’s tyre deflated, so we resorted to a repeated pump-and-run approach for the last 7 km to our Warmshowers host. There we stayed with a lovely family who cooked us a wonderful soba noodle meal, and the husband was a bike mechanic and checked Joy’s bike, fixing two additional punctures, finding the offending splinter in the tyre, and adjusting her gear cable. We were really grateful for all their advice and support.

Saturday: A late start from our Warmshowers host, and the desire to camp by Lake Toya meant we were content with another short day, 40.27 km. Our host cooked Joy an omelette, while I had hummus and toast, along with some nuts and fruit for breakfast. We then made our way to a spring to fill up with some fresh spring water and some fresh tofu for brunch, before making our way up and around the hills to the lake. We arrived late afternoon, which gave us a lovely early evening, making our way around the lake to our campsite. Our day ended with watching a few fireworks across the lake.

Sunday: An early start to attempt a long run, in the end, we completed just over 58 km. We had hoped to see more of the lake as we made our way uphill from Lake Toya, and the sea on the other side. Instead, we found ourselves mostly on fairly quiet roads, with trees on either side. The morning was hilly and involved a lot of pushing a Brompton. The afternoon was flat, but with tired legs, it was slow going, and we didn’t reach camp until 18.30. We’re in a wonderful little park right now, and resting up ahead of another big day tomorrow.

☀️ Photo from the Road

🚀 Next Up

A couple more days until Hakodate, where we’ll have an entire day off, before we finally say goodbye to Hokkaido and make our way to Honshu.

🏁 Finish Line

That’s all for this week. The data recovery seems to have gone well, so hopefully more videos will appear soon. Until then, keep an eye out for the stories we post on Instagram.

Thank you for reading and for all your support.

Take it easy,

Phill