We started day 3 in Yakumo quite tired having covered 160km plus the previous two days (largely out of necessity on appropriate places to stop that would have food). We opted for a short semi rest day 3.
We started with a leisurely ride down the coast, looking for historic sites in the village of Usu on the way to Date. The sign posts for navigating to them were there but we never found them! They allegedly exist...
We wanted quiet roads so we headed inland towards a service road by the expressway... With far more of a climb than we had anticipated. We'd completed half our intended climb for the day, and thus didn't descend back to Date. Expressways deserve special mention: there are limited access roads branching throughout Hokkaido. They're all toll roads though and t seems most traffic sticks to the original roads. Our rides would have been much quieter on an expressway! Go figure.
Our climb brought us to Sobetsu and our regular fare of convenience store food for lunch. In the Seicomart I was approached by a Japanese gentleman who explained he'd appreciates the help of locals back when he was in Italy, and wondered if we could use any help, offering us to come by his place for lunch.
"Awesome" I thought, but this turned to concern when he asked me to pay for his groceries, all $3.79 of it. Not a huge amount and he had invited us into his home, so sure, why not, though my scam detectors were tingling. Thus was my introduction to Taka.
We followed our Taka to his place down the road. It was... A disaster. The yard was in the shambles and the house suggested equally bad, though we never ventures inside. Instead we are our convenience store food under a tree at a nearby shrine, with Taka first explaining to us how to properly approach. We shared some stories, and played guess each other's ages (he put me at 36!), and we learned that Taka had grown up in this valley and was proud to show it off. He offered to show us around a bit. So, with nothing else planned but climbing a short hill and finding accommodation, we agreed.
Taka took us walking on a trail to a waterfall that is the only outlet of Lake Toya, and to his friend's farm. There we saw the apple orchards and strawberry greenhouses, and shared afternoon tea with the farm hands, before declining an invitation to sleep in the barn, in favour of continuing onto Lake Toya. Our time with Taka drew to a close but he had certainly enriched our trip.
A short ride on we encountered Lake Toya. It's a doughnut shaped lake, formed in a volcanic crater and is immensely beautiful.
With light fading, dinner was hastily found at what turned out to be a Chinese restaurant, and they in turn recommended a campsite, which we readily accepted.
Numbers:
36 km today
196km total
1 flat
Route. I stopped after Taka drove us to the farm so a bit off. Lake Toya is the blue in the upper right.
It wasn't a lot of distance, but there were several climbs!
Taka
No comments:
Post a Comment