Abashiri – Monbetsu 77 miles At the base of Mt. Tento just a short distance from my camping ground next to Lake Abashiri lays the repositioned Abashiri Prison. When I heard the story of Abashiri prison and the abstract and harsh misery endured by its prisoners I felt compelled to pay a visit. The curiosity…
Hokkaido Summer: Wild is the Wind
Higashimokoto – Abashiri 71 miles The road out of Highashimokoto continued in the same hilly prevalence from where it had left off yesterday. Yet the rise and fall of the landscape would today be the least of my concerns. As a far more brutally sinister enemy raged from the east, an enemy cruel and merciless,…
Hokkaido Summer: The Beer at the End of the Tunnel
Sounkyo – Higashimokoto 88 miles At 3,388 metres, the Ginga tunnel leading out of Sounkyo was a beast of a tunnel. A safe tunnel one might add though, one to which welcomely allowed a plentiful amount of sidewalk space for the casual tour cyclist, always a bonus. This did however mean cutting out a small…
Hokkaido Summer: Waterfalls & Grizzlies
Sounkyo The 1,984 meter Mt Kurodake can be tackled in two ways, hiking or cheating. Be in so it was my day off out of the saddle I decided that it would be in my best interests to opt for the latter and cheat my way to the mountains summit. I‘d achieve this by firstly…
Hokkaido Summer: The Loins of Hokkaido
Asahikawa – Sounkyo 50 miles I was up and about early, not quite reeling from a hangover as I was still drunk. But the day ahead was playing on my mind and I needed to get moving before the whole world imploded for no apparent reason whatsoever. Kev would point me in the direction of…
Hokkaido Summer: Farm Porn Uncensored
Furano – Asahikawa 46 miles Furano is famed in summer for its fields of lavender, and with the season’s sudden change farm labourers were out in force maintaining the crop in readiness for the hive of tourists that would shortly follow. Being slightly too early I would miss out on the lavender at its peak…
Hokkaido Summer: The Takikawa Midnight Sun
Takikawa – Furano 41 miles I awoke to the sound of a natural cuckoo clock, the skylark’s reeling also soon following suit from where he had left off the previous night. I was surprised by how well I’d slept on my first night back under the stars. Being broad daylight already the night had quite…
Hokkaido Summer
Sapporo – Takikawa 62 miles Despite the coming of the cherry blossom the weather the week prior to my departure from Sapporo had been a cold, wet and windy disgrace. A hostel guest that had just recently returned from the north would tell me that it was the coldest place he had ever been to…
Christ On A Bike
22/04/2014 Hachinohe – Lake Towada It was now a Tuesday and I was a day late for the resurrection, yet Christ’s grave looked undisturbed and I had an inkling that he was still sleeping. Which I thought to be rather rude considering how far I’d come to visit him, yet alas he is Jesus Christ…
Touring the Sanriku Coast – III
13/04/2014 Minamisanriku – Ofunato Daylight bought little change to my eyes. A vast nothingness of baron land would greet me in what was once a place known as Minamisanriku, a town that would be 95% wiped out during the tsunami. My thoughts dismally collecting with each and every place I encountered along this devastated coast…
Tokyo to Tokyo 