北海道自転車旅行：7/5 旭川へ

We said our good byes to Ryan, made sub sandwichs for breakfast, and were back on the road. Ryan told us that there is a bike route along the river that leads to Asahikawa (旭川), and so that the route we took. The entrence of the bike route looked deserted, a sign pointing to a little paved trail covered in grass. It seemed well once we passes through the grass, as we entered a river side park with a map of the bike route welcoming us. The river side bike route was pritty nice, with green grass on both sides under clear blue skies. We were enjoying it for some kilometers, until the route suddenly turned away from the river into the farms and discontinued soon after. We stuck by the riverside and rode on, seeing the "bike route" appear and disappear now and then: whenever the "bike route" sign disappears, it turned into dirt road. Boy is this route finished? Abandoned? Underconstruction? Or what? We saw signs of neither, only an incomplete product of carelessness. One the bright side, we rode through great fields of grass with rolls of hay left here and there, obviously made from the tall grass grown there. Hay rolls on green grass under the golden sun, with eagles flying above: a sight you never see in the tropical/subtropical island of Taiwan.

After that beauty, we passed a huge sign, shapped as a bike, that said "Takikawa-Fukagawa bike route". (Fukagawa (深川) is the city between Takikawa and Asahikawa) And sarcastically, the route leades right into a field of tall grass right after the sign: this is truly the end of it, although Fukagawa, where it was supposed to lead to, is still miles away and nowhere in sight.

Forced off the river side route, we cut accross some farms and finally got back on Route 12. We soon got to the Fukagawa station of the road, the only one we know of that has a 7-eleven. Later on, we came to a tunnel that said bike and pedestrians not allowed, and there's a bypass route for us next to it. This is where we saw the first "Caution: Bears around" (注意：熊出没) sign. Fun and exciting as it is, no one really hoped to run into one.

Getting closer to our goal of the day: Asahikawa(旭川), we encountered another tunnel, also with a bypass for bikes. Yet, it's part of the "Asahikawa city bike route". As we had to make a turn before entering the city to get to our camping site(カムイの杜公園), I was afraid that the path might lead directly into the city with no exits to the camping site, thus I made the decision to ride through the tunnel. Bad mistake. The tunnel was narrow. If you ride on the road, you block traffic, and my friends practically made a traffic jam. I, who was riding on the sidewalk, told them to get on the sidewalk and let the traffic go. But the sidewalk is also narrow, with sand on the ground, and "emergency phones"(非常電話) sticking out of the wall now and then, forcing us to walk by the phones to avoid falling off the sidewalk. Worst of all, it turned out to be more then 1.2km long, you could immagine the bad air inside...

Taking deep breaths outside, we finally got out, and noticed that the bike path had many exits to the main road. Great. Next on, we still missed that small turn to the campsite, and rode directly into the city dispite sticking to route 12. Well, on the good side we found a great big supermarket to get food for dinner in the city. And we could get to the campsite very fast from the city. It's only a 1km climb, 1km downhill, and 1km flat road. There's also hotsprings(高砂温泉) on top of the hill.

The campsite (カムイの杜公園, something like "park of the stomach of the devil"? I'm not sure how to translate the name), is neatly arranged, another beautiful park in a valley, and best of all, free. The manager is very nice, helpful and likes to chat, always saying "you really should see the flowers in Biei(美瑛, our next stop)". With hotspings in 2km, and a supermarket in 5km, it was one of the best stays we had. We even had sashimi(刺身) and beer after the bath in the hotspings. Sashimi is always half price in supermarkets by the end of the day, to clear off the old ones and sell fresh ones the next day. The half price ones are our favorite. Oh, yeah, the hotspings bath place guy also gave us Japanese Cherries, which are the sweetest I'd ever had.

We were the only ones camping in the park that night. Very nice to have a valley all to our selves.
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