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…
Tag: Travel Writing
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…
Touring the Sanriku Coast – II
12/04/2014 Ishinomaki – Minamisanriku Today would be a deplorable mess with some half-arsed personal planning doused in a contingent of anti-social roads. Traipsing the Oshiku Peninsula regrettable. Situated just 45 miles away the Peninsula makes it the closest part of Honshu to the epicentre of the 2011 quake and again would make this one of…
Down in the Land of the One-Eyed Dragon
In the 17th Century there lived a Daimyo with balls of steel, a guy so hard that when he came face to face with the smallpox as a juvenile he plucked his own eyeball out giving him the nickname of the “one-eyed dragon”. That Daimyo’s name was Date Masamune, and as he grew he became…
Tokyo to Tokyo 