Lake Shikotsu – Oshamanbe 82 miles A multitude of mountains paved the way for the 60-mile stretch between Lake Shikotsu and Lake Toya. With the comfort of clear skies, I made exceptional progress, my only concerns being the weekend drivers who drove by as if they had just been given a day pass to behave…
Tag: Adventure
Hokkaido Summer: World Cup Karaoke Mountain Man
Sapporo – Lake Shikotsu 53 miles Between an 8-hour karaoke binge and England’s next World Cup match, I’d had very little time to rest. Normally, a 4am kick off would have been deemed an unheard of feat, yet I was still running on an excess of alcohol fumes and raring for England’s next humiliation to…
Hokkaido Summer: Back to the Big Smoke
Mashike – Sapporo 74 miles When I awoke I was able to add a new tick to the list of places slept upon my journey thus far: Hostel – ✓ Baseball Pitch – ✓ Park Bench – ✓ The House of Pubes – ✓ Hotel – ✓ Tsunami Evacuation Point – ✓ Refugee Shelter –…
Hokkaido Summer: I Get Wet
Wakkanai For three days I found myself holed up in another one of Hokkaidō’s classic 1980’s themed youth hostels. It was a desolate sort of building that gave off a haunted house vibe; located atop an isolated hill. Wakkanai was still being deluged by buckets of rain and after a while I began to feel…
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: 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…
Tokyo to Tokyo 