Day 6 - Hamatonbetsu to Wakkanai via Cape Soya

Thursday 14 June 2012 

Day 6 - Hamatonbetsu – Wakkanai via Cape Soya  105km (Total 591km)

I had a good start to the day, with a Japanese breakfast (a large piece of smoked trout, pickled vegetables, and heaps of rice), and was away from Hamantonbetsu around 8:45am.

The cycle to Cape Soya (61km) was not difficult, but was a bit boring.  I was very fortunate and did not have much wind at all and although initially cloudy, the day shaped up to be fine and clear.  There were lots of straight stretches of coast-line and small fishing villages along the way.  Even mid-summer it was really quite cold.  I cannot imagine how hard the winters must be for people who live in these fishing villages.

Cape Soya was not anything too interesting.  I had my photo taken outside the monument to mark the northern-most point of Japan, but other than that, it was just a good spot for lunch – there was a nice grassy patch of grass, a souvenir shop and some food shops too.  Even though it was a relatively clear day, I could not see Russia J

I didn’t stay long – there were bus loads of tourists arriving every 10 minutes or so and it was a bit cold when not cycling.

The cycle into Wakkanai was also not very interesting… it was a much larger city than I had imagined, and you needed to go right through the industrial part before arriving at the city-proper.  On the way into town I saw a McDonalds and though that they would probably have WiFi, but they didn’t.  Quite a disappointment since I have pretty much been unable to access internet on this holiday :(

At Wakkanai, I went to the train station to get directions to the camping site in town, and stock up on some food from a convenience store.  The camping site was easy to find, but up a steep hill (of course!).  At the convenience store, I stocked up on the usual stuff – bread, candy etc, but also got a pot of peanut-caramel, which I had initially guessed was peanut butter.  It was delicious!  I'll definitely be buying more during my stay in Japan!

The camp-site was easy to find, but up a steep hill.  It was a very nice camp-site with well-groomed lawns and some friendly Japanese motorcyclists already camping out. 

After dinner, I ran into a Danish guy who was also camping out in the park, and had been in town in the afternoon at the Onsen and buying SeicoMart dinner. He had done a fortnight-long internship at a Japanese-English newspaper in Tokyo (he is a journalism student in Denmark) and had been hitch-hiking around Hokkaido for the past two weeks. 

It was a really cold night, but with beautiful clear skies, I could see all the northern-hemisphere stars… Lovely!