Thursday, September 20, 2012
Hokkaido Summer Cycling Slideshow
I made a little video slideshow of the bike trip which looks a bit like this.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Hakodate
Hakodate was the start of this little peddle around Hokkaido and now it`s the end. But last week i was in a different city.
Sapporo was good. It`s laid out on an easy grid of north-south east-west streets that seem to idle through the day waiting for sunset so it can enjoy itself under the neon again. Every other building seemed to house a bar or restaurant. People told me i should go back in winter. "It`s a different city in winter" they`d say. Day and night, cold and warm, four cities in one. It would be very easy to go to Sapporo for a week and still be there a few years later.
But i only managed to stay for a couple of nights before the tyres were rolling again through more headwinds, rain, sunshine and scenery west through Otaru and then south through the beautiful mountains of Niseko which upped the sweat levels to saturation point. The tyres have also rolled past quite a bit of crap on this journey which i would never have seen if i was in a vehicle. I guess i`ve never given it too much thought before (never had to) but the side of the road is where everything gets washed up; litter, furniture, a lonely shoe, crushed cans, mushed newspapers, car crash leftovers and plenty of dead animals from insects to deer with all your regular domestic pets along the way too. You never notice when you glide past in an air conditioned box at murderous speeds but trust me, all the shit that you throw out of the window or squash under your tyres is all there waiting to greet the long distance cyclist, driftwood for the world of wheels.
After Niseko i took stock a little bit and wasn`t too pleased with the results. The tent has a couple of holes in it. The camping mattress has a bulge in the middle of it the size of a rugby ball whenever i inflate it. The lenses of my glasses are scratched so badly that everything looks slightly frosted. My mobile phone battery is dead. My odometer reset itself so that i have no idea how far i actually travelled. The bike is buggered. I`ve met people who`ve cycled around the world for months and years at a time. How do they do it?
And camping itself had got a little tiresome. I`d gone through what i`ve subsequently called the Three Stages of Over-Camping.
Stage One: You think to yourself, "I`d love to sleep in a bed." Thoughts of duvets and pillows and blankets occupy your mind at sunset.
Stage Two: You think to yourself, "I`d love to sleep in a room." Beds are no longer important at this stage. Four walls, a ceiling and a floor would be just lovely, thank you.
Stage Three: You think to yourself, "I`d love to sleep...well, yeah, i`d love to sleep". That`s all. You no longer care where and on what that sleep occurs. On a beach, in a storm, on a bed of nails, in hell, on a wild bear, you don`t care as long as you get multiple hours of it continuously. I didn`t reach a Stage Four. I can only assume that would be a combination of murder and suicide.
Hakodate is a cute little city but i`ll leave tomorrow heading back to Tokyo and work and normality and a bed. It`s been a thoroughly good journey that`s disappeared into the past faster than most, the ending crept up on me even though i could see it clearly on a map getting closer. But there`s something about the rhythm of the peddles and the barely perceptible sound of your own movement that makes you crave more. For all the sweat and rain and sunburn and malfunctions, this morning as i set off into more scenic hills for the last time i thought, "Yeah, i could do another week of this."
Keep moving. See you soon.
Sapporo was good. It`s laid out on an easy grid of north-south east-west streets that seem to idle through the day waiting for sunset so it can enjoy itself under the neon again. Every other building seemed to house a bar or restaurant. People told me i should go back in winter. "It`s a different city in winter" they`d say. Day and night, cold and warm, four cities in one. It would be very easy to go to Sapporo for a week and still be there a few years later.
But i only managed to stay for a couple of nights before the tyres were rolling again through more headwinds, rain, sunshine and scenery west through Otaru and then south through the beautiful mountains of Niseko which upped the sweat levels to saturation point. The tyres have also rolled past quite a bit of crap on this journey which i would never have seen if i was in a vehicle. I guess i`ve never given it too much thought before (never had to) but the side of the road is where everything gets washed up; litter, furniture, a lonely shoe, crushed cans, mushed newspapers, car crash leftovers and plenty of dead animals from insects to deer with all your regular domestic pets along the way too. You never notice when you glide past in an air conditioned box at murderous speeds but trust me, all the shit that you throw out of the window or squash under your tyres is all there waiting to greet the long distance cyclist, driftwood for the world of wheels.
After Niseko i took stock a little bit and wasn`t too pleased with the results. The tent has a couple of holes in it. The camping mattress has a bulge in the middle of it the size of a rugby ball whenever i inflate it. The lenses of my glasses are scratched so badly that everything looks slightly frosted. My mobile phone battery is dead. My odometer reset itself so that i have no idea how far i actually travelled. The bike is buggered. I`ve met people who`ve cycled around the world for months and years at a time. How do they do it?
And camping itself had got a little tiresome. I`d gone through what i`ve subsequently called the Three Stages of Over-Camping.
Stage One: You think to yourself, "I`d love to sleep in a bed." Thoughts of duvets and pillows and blankets occupy your mind at sunset.
Stage Two: You think to yourself, "I`d love to sleep in a room." Beds are no longer important at this stage. Four walls, a ceiling and a floor would be just lovely, thank you.
Stage Three: You think to yourself, "I`d love to sleep...well, yeah, i`d love to sleep". That`s all. You no longer care where and on what that sleep occurs. On a beach, in a storm, on a bed of nails, in hell, on a wild bear, you don`t care as long as you get multiple hours of it continuously. I didn`t reach a Stage Four. I can only assume that would be a combination of murder and suicide.
Hakodate is a cute little city but i`ll leave tomorrow heading back to Tokyo and work and normality and a bed. It`s been a thoroughly good journey that`s disappeared into the past faster than most, the ending crept up on me even though i could see it clearly on a map getting closer. But there`s something about the rhythm of the peddles and the barely perceptible sound of your own movement that makes you crave more. For all the sweat and rain and sunburn and malfunctions, this morning as i set off into more scenic hills for the last time i thought, "Yeah, i could do another week of this."
Keep moving. See you soon.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Sapporo
It`s been a while. I`ve peddled 2200km around Hokkaido in the last five weeks(ish) and i`m not quite finished. My legs may never forgive me.
I went along the south coast of Hokkaido through more fishing villages and farming towns dodging roadkill (there`s lots of that) and being dodged by trucks and cars (quite a few of them too) until i reached Cape Erimo which sticks out of the coast and into gale force winds. It was probably the windiest place i`ve ever been. Houses slanted. Dogs walked at angles. Birds took off and never came back. It was like riding through sand.
My guide book highlighted beautiful scenic coastal roads that would be perfect for motorbike or cycle touring but it started raining and it didn`t stop for days and so the scenery was submerged in three horizons of wet, damp and fog, ably accompanied by a shit load more wind. Camping isn`t an adventure when everything you own is wet and there isn`t a shower and you`ve just spent the best part of a day peddling downhill into a head wind. Things were in danger of slipping into the negative end of the fun scale but Nemuro came to the rescue.
Nemuro is a town on the far south east corner of Hokkaido that is frozen solid for most parts of the year and as a consequence nobody there really knew what to do with the summer sunshine and t-shirt temperatures. People walked about looking at the sky expecting snow to fall from it and looking at the ground in slight disbelief as it wasn`t covered in a layer of ice or snow. I slept in a bed, washed and dried everything and ate a bucket load of sushi.
Up the east coast there was the Shiretoko Peninsular which is a stunning looking place dripping with mountains and trees. A winding road of only 18km took me two and half hours to climb such was the gradient and temperature but the 13km on the other side only took about 15 minutes. There was a lot of sweat, swearing and photograh taking on Shiretoko.
The most entertaining times have been when things have gone wrong. Heading east instead of west and then finding out your mistake and shrugging and carrying on east anyway until you find a campsite near a beach with a drunk old man who basically lives in a tent near a beach and won`t stop talking to you or waving at you when you walk across the campsite heading to the toilet and makes you wish you`d gone west just like you planned.
Or when the wind and rain become so stong and pain-in-the-arse-ish that you actually physically shake your fist at the sky and shout obsenities at it only to realise that there`s a car full of people behind you trying not to look and laugh as they overtake.
I`ve met plenty of other people on cycling or motorbike tours and as a consequence ended up in a hostel one night with a group of lads thrown together in the middle of nowhere. They all chatted away agreeing with each other and nodding vigourously while i sat on the edges listening in trying to catch any words that seemed recognisble which were mainly difficult, easy, wet, hot, tired, delicious, cheap, expensive (i deduced that they were either all talking about their interetsing journeys or they`d all visited one hell of a brothel) all the while we ate bbq fish as the mosquitos ate us and the crows tried to get to the leftovers in the rubbish bins and the local cat stalked the birds. Not sure who wins that food chain.
Mounatins, beaches, lakes, rivers, dirt tracks, gravel, roads, rain, fog, sun, sun burn, sun tan, sodden feet, sweaty clothes, dirt, baths, cities, running repairs, incomprehensible conversations, laughter, anger (hang on, this sounds like i`ve been to war)and being just on the correct side of lost, Hokkaido and a bicycle have given me too much. Well, almost too much. I`ve got two weeks left yet.
I went along the south coast of Hokkaido through more fishing villages and farming towns dodging roadkill (there`s lots of that) and being dodged by trucks and cars (quite a few of them too) until i reached Cape Erimo which sticks out of the coast and into gale force winds. It was probably the windiest place i`ve ever been. Houses slanted. Dogs walked at angles. Birds took off and never came back. It was like riding through sand.
My guide book highlighted beautiful scenic coastal roads that would be perfect for motorbike or cycle touring but it started raining and it didn`t stop for days and so the scenery was submerged in three horizons of wet, damp and fog, ably accompanied by a shit load more wind. Camping isn`t an adventure when everything you own is wet and there isn`t a shower and you`ve just spent the best part of a day peddling downhill into a head wind. Things were in danger of slipping into the negative end of the fun scale but Nemuro came to the rescue.
Nemuro is a town on the far south east corner of Hokkaido that is frozen solid for most parts of the year and as a consequence nobody there really knew what to do with the summer sunshine and t-shirt temperatures. People walked about looking at the sky expecting snow to fall from it and looking at the ground in slight disbelief as it wasn`t covered in a layer of ice or snow. I slept in a bed, washed and dried everything and ate a bucket load of sushi.
Up the east coast there was the Shiretoko Peninsular which is a stunning looking place dripping with mountains and trees. A winding road of only 18km took me two and half hours to climb such was the gradient and temperature but the 13km on the other side only took about 15 minutes. There was a lot of sweat, swearing and photograh taking on Shiretoko.
The most entertaining times have been when things have gone wrong. Heading east instead of west and then finding out your mistake and shrugging and carrying on east anyway until you find a campsite near a beach with a drunk old man who basically lives in a tent near a beach and won`t stop talking to you or waving at you when you walk across the campsite heading to the toilet and makes you wish you`d gone west just like you planned.
Or when the wind and rain become so stong and pain-in-the-arse-ish that you actually physically shake your fist at the sky and shout obsenities at it only to realise that there`s a car full of people behind you trying not to look and laugh as they overtake.
I`ve met plenty of other people on cycling or motorbike tours and as a consequence ended up in a hostel one night with a group of lads thrown together in the middle of nowhere. They all chatted away agreeing with each other and nodding vigourously while i sat on the edges listening in trying to catch any words that seemed recognisble which were mainly difficult, easy, wet, hot, tired, delicious, cheap, expensive (i deduced that they were either all talking about their interetsing journeys or they`d all visited one hell of a brothel) all the while we ate bbq fish as the mosquitos ate us and the crows tried to get to the leftovers in the rubbish bins and the local cat stalked the birds. Not sure who wins that food chain.
Mounatins, beaches, lakes, rivers, dirt tracks, gravel, roads, rain, fog, sun, sun burn, sun tan, sodden feet, sweaty clothes, dirt, baths, cities, running repairs, incomprehensible conversations, laughter, anger (hang on, this sounds like i`ve been to war)and being just on the correct side of lost, Hokkaido and a bicycle have given me too much. Well, almost too much. I`ve got two weeks left yet.
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