北海道自転車旅行：7/12 大雪山から逃げる

This might be the first and only time that we would wake up in a public toilet. Since when did you slept in your bathroom?

(Lake Shikaribetsu/然別湖)
Well there we were, half way in Daisetsuzan (大雪山) national park, and climbing on to the highest point of the mountains was not only going to be conquering the climax of Hokkaido, it was supposed to be the climax of our whole trip. Yet we woke up to the sound of a downpour outside, confirmed by checking outside. Well, we had experience of riding in tropical storm like rain back in Taiwan that was even more water then this, but never in this temperature. I sat in our tent, my mind blank, with no idea what to do, while my friends went on to prepare breakfast.

Minutes later, 毅軍 came back to tell me our primary food supply (all the bread and noodle that were in his big box), were all gone. Turned out that whole box was left out through the night, and not took into the public toilet. And everything with a packaging that allowed the "food smell" to leak out was gone. As the smell less stuff such as sealed cans were still there, we guessed it must be stolen by wild animals. Interestingly, our rotting been sprouts were also gone, and we bid our food theft a nice & painful diarrhea. Well turned out I was the one with the largest amount of personal food reserve, I offered everyone my huge loft bread, which, thank goodness I kept next to me through the night.

Food gone, big rain, cold weather, seems like the whole world together trying to prevent us from entering Daisetsuzan. Guess we had to found our way out of the mountains. As we were in a valley, no matter what, exiting requires a climb. We could go back south the way we came, go east through the valley of Lake Nukabira (糠平湖), or go north over the peak as originally plained. Going north takes 2 days, and according to the other campers who were listening to the news on the radio, the rain was not expected to end within 3 days. With no food and no food stores in the national park area (except for hotels, snack & gift shops, and expensive restaurants) that was clearly a no-go. Going back the way we came was not only boring, but also a great big 3 day set back to our agenda. With more friends arriving to meet us in Memanbetsu (女満別) on the 15th, that was also not an option. So going east it was, and we could also tour Lake Nukabira (糠平湖) and Lake Akan (阿寒湖) along the way.

And so we got everything out of the public restroom. We noticed that the other group of campers had already moved everything under the roof sticking out of the warehouse, with their tent hung up under that roof dripping water. Guess this kind of weather was all too much for anyone to camp outside. They told us that we really had bad timming, as their previous camps here were always great, and this time, they also were forced to cancel farther plans. As we packed and did all the water protection work, they were also packing their gear into their minivan. They even heated several cups of milk for us, and offered us one of their jackets. Such nice people. Hot milk was really a blessing in this kind of weather, but of course we didn't accept the jacket. I cut open a huge garbage bag and wrapped up my pants. My legs became all baggy and noisy, yet reliving the wet pants nightmare of yesterday was not a good way to start a day.

We left Lake Shikaribetsu (然別湖) as soon as the rain became a light drizzle, heading toward Lake Nukabira (糠平湖): the next major lake in the Daisetsuzan area. At one point, the rain stopped for a few minutes, and we hoped for the best, a slight possibility of getting food at Lake Nukabira and going up Daisetsuzan. Well, the rain returned, and we arived at Lake Nukabira, again all soaked up. Half way, my "garbage bag pants" became so noisy against the strong wind when going down hill, so, wet pants again. MaiYu's brakes became almost useless with a thick layer of mud and water between the pads and the frame, forcing us to go slowly downhill. So first thing when we entered the Nukabura Lake side village, was to find a shelter to avoid the rain and clean up her breaks.

There was a tiny visitor center at Lake Nukabira. It all looked so fascinating if the weather wasn't that bad. There was no store to restock our food supply though, and the clerk told us the weather was getting worse. On the good side, Nukabira is famous for hot spring baths (onsen, 温泉), and there were several nice restaurants. We went to an old onsen place, 元祖 湯元館, which had a nice price, and a "mixed outdoor bath" (混浴露天風呂, a outdoor pool with no separation between gender), just what we needed to heat up our freezing bodies. Well, with Japanese onsen baths, you should first clean off your self with a shower, then choose which pool (cool or hot, indoor or outdoor) you'd like to sit in. Well, it's about noon, and there's only 2~3 other guests other then us. I thought, wouldn't it be real cool to be all naked outside? Sure enough, the indoor bath room was filled with hot moisture, and everytime someone opens the door to the outside, a freezing cool wind came blowing in. Brrrrr.... Sitting in the indoor pool, the girls shouted at me from the other side: "We go out first, we'll tell you when we're back in!" (all public baths had a wall between the men & woman area but left a gap near the roof for talking and air to circulate) I was like, err, isn't there other guys other then us? 毅軍 had told them previously that he wouldn't be going out, so they only shouted at me. Well, sitting too long in the indoor pool was a little boring, so, we alternate several times between shower, pool, shower, pool. Almost 30 minutes later, no shouting from the girls (what were they doing so long outside?). Screw it, and I walked out, just to see two skinny backs standing outside, chatting. I wouldn't want to be chased out as if perverts in anime, although it really was a "mixed onsen". So, silently, I went back to sit indoors. Sometime later, they finally shouted their return, and out I went. Well, not bad, everyone else had left and I had the outdoor pool all to myself. Although the walk to the pool was freezing cold, it was really nice once you get in the pool. Your body's hot, the part near the water was warm from the steam was warm, the top of your head was cold, and the pool was on a clift over seeing a small stream flowing under trees. The water doesn't seem as clean outside as there were floating dead leaves, but all the good things made up for that. I soon got bored and was the first to get out. The public bath had a free public PC with internet access in the lobby. A check of the weather reveled that almost the whole southern Hokkaido was raining and to be continuing for weeks. But I also checked my mail, and boy oh boy, my lab mate wrote to tell me that the EBV Zta gene promoter deletions constructs that I did right after I left was a success! From that moment on, I became happy for the rest of the day. ("Screw the rain, I got constructs done!") Waiting for my friends who seemed to be enjoying the onsen for a much longer time then me, I meet several motorcycle travelers arriving: more touring mates with the same map. Interestingly, they all had plans to ride through Daisetsuzan, and forced to stop here at Lake Nukabira either to rest and wait for better weather, or just have a hot bath to warm up.

We had lunch right across the street at the "Nukabira Onsen Hotel Naushika restaurant (糠平温泉ホテル　レストラン　ナウシカ)" , because Candy said she really wanted to try the special "deer meat rice bowl" (鹿丼) here. Weirdly, there were pamphlets in the restaurant, telling people to watch out for wild deer in the road, with a photo of a deer after a car accident, it's dead eyes reflecting the light, as if staring at the reader. What a great combination with "deer meat rice bowls"! And then 2 more bikers came in from the rain, walking in with a face, mumbling: "cold, cold...", and then they walked by the "new menu item: deer meat rice bowl" poster, and burst into a comical laughter, with one hand pointing at the poster, the other hand on his stomach, shouting: "っっっ鹿丼！", and laughing as they walked to a seat at the end of the restaurant. Our friend 毅軍 over here behaved in an even more exaggerated manner, mimicking that guy's way of laughing again and again, unstoppable. This would continue for days to come, and I bet his stomach must have ached very badly. Eventually, our "deer meat rice bowls" (鹿丼) came. It was actually not that special, tastes kind of like a more rough and drier beef, and that was that. Yet the weird part is of us four, we got Candy saying that she had a disgusting feel after seeing that dead deer photo, and her deer meat doesn't taste as well under this mood; while 毅軍 was laughing "っっっ鹿丼！" like every 2 minutes as he ate. And that, is the weird situation that we finished our lunch in.

Well, a long slide down hill after lunch brought us out of Daisetsuzan national park. Turns out that on the route to Lake Akan (阿寒湖), the next town was Ashoro (足寄), which is actually still quite far away, and so it was the whole afternoon in the rain.

In order to get there faster, we cut through route 468 (道道468), a tiny route that doesn't seem to be maintained. The road was very, very bumpy, with cracks all over the place. I'd say it's about a crack every 50 cm on the road, worse then some off-road trails. It really feels like riding a train. Could be fun under normal situations, with the bump, bump, bump, bump, bump,... , but my rear pack was loose from day one, with with those bumps, they are falling off almost every 10 meters I go, even when tied onto my rack with rope, forcing me to hold it with one hand and ride with the other single hand. I even re-tied and tightened the rope several times, with the rope eventually getting loose with time. Eventually I got through the bumpy road, but taking care of that got me from the one riding in the front to being 30 minutes behind Candy & 毅軍 in the end (Maiyu always likes to ride in the last).

(Lake Ashoro/足寄湖)

We then connected onto R241 (国道241), that runs pass Lake Ashoro (足寄湖) and into the town of Ashoro. Out of bump & crack land, we now found ourselves on a road with many trucks, mud and dust. Add that to the never ending rain, and soon all the splashes covered our bikes in a mixture of water, mud, dust, sand, and rock. Chemically, it's all H2O & silicon dioxide, but to the eye, it's a mess. All the dirt made me a little embarrassed to step in when we got to the "Lake Ashoro station of the road (道の駅　足寄湖)" rest station.

This station was another place where our map marked "good cheese", but again, the station is 70% occupied by the cheese factory (while walled by glass for visitors to see the process), cheese samples were tiny bits, price very high, and the cheese curry rice combo was sold out for the day. We bought some cheese cake snacks that was slightly disappointing, yet good enough for our hungry stomachs. The best part of the place, though, was the scenery. It was a two story building located on a hill next to Lake Ashoro, so just in the right place to have a panorama of the lake. And also, nice shelter to dry off a little (we started to like the restroom hand driers, which we used on our wet gloves) and warm up. Yet, getting all warm and cozy in the station made me, who was already tired, a little drowsy, so better hit the road and find lodging fast. All tired, warn out and cold, we were no longer in the mood of camping (except for 毅軍 who insisted on saving up on a low budget and spending mainly on food).

Well, there was a free camping site at Ashoro (足寄), where 毅軍 stayed alone that night. The other 3 of us found a little Japanese style business inn (にいつ旅館). It's got wooden floor, paper doors with wood frame, tatami mats (畳), and all the Japanese furniture. It was kind of family style, and the owners (I'd guess it was the dad, mom, grandpa & grandma of the owning family), kindly helped us with all the cleaning up of our messy gear, which we feared would produce a mess in their clean and beautiful room. (My bags were not only covered in sand and dirt, it's got water oozing out!) So after the clean up, we were brought to a room on the 2nd floor. The room consists of a wooden frame gate, a little stone floored hallway where you leave your shoes upon entering, and then a paper slide door that leads into the room, with it's tatami floor slightly raised above the outside. Inside, were the beds (well, kind of like blankets that you sleep on) laid out on the tatami, TV, closet, fridge, and a wooden floored chatting area with a tea table. Everything is so nice. It's more like a suite, but cheaper then a hotel room, just because it's a little town. One difference with hotels is that there's no bath room in the room. Again in Japanese style, public toilets and a public bath with shower and public tub. Something not Japanese about the place was 1st generation Mac computers in the hallways as decoration, talk about a nice surprise.

Dinner was nice and normal Japanese noodles in a near by restaurant. Nothing special to write about, yet still tasty. A walk to the supermarket that night feels really nice. Ashoro is another of those peaceful little towns where people can live relaxed without the tension of large cities yet still get most of the essentials of living near by. Also, we bought ground coffee that night, marked mocha bland, I liked it that it had Ethiopia beans; I don't like the Brazil beans which was also in the bland, but the good smell and slight sourness of Ethiopian mocha was still in there, and so I liked it. This marked the start of our "coffee anywhere" traveling, as we would be making coffee at tourist sites right in front of other tourists in the future, it's a little addition to the trip that would make it much more pleasant and special.

Seems so long after our last time feeling so relaxed, and this really was one of the best nights we had.

(Sorry, not much photos this day due to the rain. My huge lens isn't that useful in rain since the larger the lens, the easier to get rain drops on it.)

July 11th 然別湖 << | >> July 13th 阿寒湖