Day 3: Biei to Lake Iwaonai

Monday 11 June 2012

Day 3 Biei to Lake Iwaonai  91km (total 301km)

Hills, hills, hills!  I decided to alter my planned route this morning so, instead of proceedng along the major road north to Asahikawa/Bifuka, I decided to head back into the hills, towards Lake Iwaonai (although all in Kanji on my map, so I only found out the English translation after I arrived!).  The camping ground there was listed in the Hokkaido Touring Mapple, and looked nice, and I wanted to get back into the beautiful forested hills!

So, heading out of Biei, I quickly detoured off the main road onto the “jet-coaster road”, which is a very rolling back-road that tracks pretty much parallel to the main road.  It was awesome! Highly recommended.  Unfortunately, I am in Hokkaido too early to see the Lavender in bloom on the hills around Biei, but in summer the view would be even more spectacular.  As it was, I enjoyed the up-and-down road and lack of traffic!

I then avoided Asahikawa by using a back-road (I sort-of wanted to see if there was a McDonalds, and if it had WiFi for blogging, but my hate for traffic won out!).  I cycled through farm land ‘till Aibetsu, then into the hills up, up and up to Lake Iwaonai.

When I got here, I was delighted to find that the campground was open, looked great, had other campers about, had a toilet/shower block, and was free!  What could be better?  Well the campground Mama told me that there was a American man right next to the campground who rented out chalets and lived in a Log house (all this was in rapid Japanese, so I only found out what she was saying in retrospect!), and she walked me over to meet him.  [Mr] Fearon was lovely and offered me a chalet for the night (free of charge) and invited me over for dinner too!  He doesn’t speak great Japanese, so was pretty excited about some English conversation, to which I was only too happy to oblige!  After getting cleaned up in my chalet, I was treated to good conversation and a delicious meal of venison stew & rice, and preserved plums with Hokkaido ice cream. Yum!

Such an awesome day in and out of the saddle, I really couldn't be happier with my decision to come to Hokkaido!  Beautiful scenery and last-minute plans that worked out better than I could have hoped for!  It is a pretty cold night here too, so I am grateful to be tucked up inside a warm chalet!

On to Bifuka tomorrow!