A Hokkaido Bike Ride: Part 1
As the ferry pulled into port at Tomakomai in Hokkaido 19 hours after leaving Tokyo, my first thought was that I was woefully unprepared for touring in Japan for the next two months. I had arrived in Japan deciding to tour by bicycle about a week beforehand. At that time I was traveling to Northern Ireland to tour Giant’s Causeway that I decided that I would tour Japan. Having just come off a stint as a Peace Corps volunteer, I didn’t really have much gear to meet those ends. But I assumed that I would be able to pick up the essentials (a bike) all in Tokyo and figure it out from there.
And so, three days after arriving in Japan and running around Tokyo trying to find that one guy who worked in a bike shop that spoke English, I had already cycled 100 miles, hopped on a ferry, and 19 hours later was dropped at the southern coast of Hokkaido. This was it! This is the island I had read about for a week beforehand that is great for cycling. My bilingual map and my cyclometer, (the only two traveling buddies I would have along for the ride) I hoped would not lead me astray as I ventured forth, unprepared and un-knowledgeable, into the wilds. I pedaled off with slight fears about ravenous bears and diseased waterways, but didn’t take notice that I was alone and in a country where I couldn’t even pretend to speak the language (though I tried).
I really had no idea what I was doing, having neither bicycle toured much nor attempted a two month self sustained tour of any kind. It was therefore a learning experience my first night wild camping about how to find a nice camping spot, how to remain hidden, and how not to freak out at every little scratch and chirp outside the flimsy tent walls. As the sun started setting about 6pm, I thought an hour beforehand is when I should have found a spot for the night. So when I saw the huge industrial dam along the river I had been biking next to, I thought it, “Wouldn’t that make a nice spot”. There was some nice hard ground near the fence that kept me from plunging to my doom, and the constant background buzz of a dam at work, I assumed making electricity. I didn’t get much sleep that first night. Upon awakening, I discovered that while it didn’t rain, my tent was still soaked from not only my breathing, but from the dew that would plague me the entire trip. Slugs were also making love to my tent.
Cycling along non-descript streets, along non-descript Japanese suburban scenery, I wasn’t experiencing or seeing the Japan I had thought I would. I wasn’t seeing the wild Hokkaido the internet raged about. I had this image that I would be cycling along the pinnacles of mountains, through dark musty forests with bears scattering away, of raging rivers and 1,000 ft gorges. I also had some fuzzy image of what Japan would be like: Hello Kitties everywhere, little kids flying kites while speaking Japanese, and lots of dead whales. Thankfully, my images were surpassed by the realities of what I experienced.
And so a second night of wild camping in the fog behind a set of toilets is where I hit, rather quickly, a low point in my travels. I was ready to call it quits.
Ahhh, but that is why there are day 3’s. After my first day of grueling hill climbs, mountain tunnels and passes, I finally made my way to the first and never-ending beauty that is Hokkaido and Japan. I discovered that along the roads are millions of secret streams, coming from somewhere and gently going elsewhere. I discovered the subtle changes of the trees in autumn as I biked higher and higher near the heart of Hokkaido. I was in an art museum all day long, my admission costing only my ability to pedal and to see.
I made my way to Akan National Park where I camped in a real campsite with thieving crows and free hot foot baths. There was even a crystal clear volcanic lake at my tent’s edge. Truly beautiful. The smile that beamed from me that day never left.
Throughout my travels in Hokkaido I was learning the ancient art of bicycle touring, the secret pleasure of motion by pedaling, and the slower paced, non-touristic sense of discovery. Every roadside stream, every caw caw of those wily crows, every unturned rock and whispered hints of adventure were mine for the taking. I struggled with the hills and the trees, screamed with the birds and the rivers as I freewheeled downhill, rested with the rocks, cried with the roadkill, and reveled in the secret spots I called my own night after night.
I spent a little over two weeks wandering the wonderful wide shouldered roads of Hokkaido. I ventured to peninsulas seldom visited by gaijin (foreigners). I went coast to coast to see the variances of the rock formations, speed through Sapporo, visited nearly every lake the island has to offer, and slept on the earth every night. Pedaling for hours everyday became automatic. I invented games to play, made witty comments on the passing life in my near perfect British accent, and accepted humbly the many offerings made to me by the Japanese environment and it’s people: Food, money, beer, and a few English sentences.
I was also learning that it wasn’t where I was going that mattered so much. The act of getting there was the adventure. The experience that I was enjoying and expounding to those who could understand me. Like the drunken Japanese man who through gesturing let me know via two thumbs up that he approved of my journey, and then gave me 1,000 yen (about $10), or the intrepid backpacker that I ran into at three different campsites around Hokkaido that eventually gave me his guide book (in Japanese) to use for the rest of my Hokkaido travels.
Nobody would have cared about me in a car, as that separates us from each other and the wonderful world that we belong to. On a bicycle I was actively welcoming all of the wonders of nature (her good and bad) upon me and telling all those who saw me that I was here to see, learn, and listen.
As I hastily made it onto a ferry that would take me to Honshu and the bulk of my tour, I said a silent prayer for Hokkaido. Not only was it a wonderful, open, and amazingly beautiful paradise where nature blooms, but I was reborn as a bicycle tourer there, cradled on the roads and rivers that taught me what it means to ride.
And so, three days after arriving in Japan and running around Tokyo trying to find that one guy who worked in a bike shop that spoke English, I had already cycled 100 miles, hopped on a ferry, and 19 hours later was dropped at the southern coast of Hokkaido. This was it! This is the island I had read about for a week beforehand that is great for cycling. My bilingual map and my cyclometer, (the only two traveling buddies I would have along for the ride) I hoped would not lead me astray as I ventured forth, unprepared and un-knowledgeable, into the wilds. I pedaled off with slight fears about ravenous bears and diseased waterways, but didn’t take notice that I was alone and in a country where I couldn’t even pretend to speak the language (though I tried).
I really had no idea what I was doing, having neither bicycle toured much nor attempted a two month self sustained tour of any kind. It was therefore a learning experience my first night wild camping about how to find a nice camping spot, how to remain hidden, and how not to freak out at every little scratch and chirp outside the flimsy tent walls. As the sun started setting about 6pm, I thought an hour beforehand is when I should have found a spot for the night. So when I saw the huge industrial dam along the river I had been biking next to, I thought it, “Wouldn’t that make a nice spot”. There was some nice hard ground near the fence that kept me from plunging to my doom, and the constant background buzz of a dam at work, I assumed making electricity. I didn’t get much sleep that first night. Upon awakening, I discovered that while it didn’t rain, my tent was still soaked from not only my breathing, but from the dew that would plague me the entire trip. Slugs were also making love to my tent.
Cycling along non-descript streets, along non-descript Japanese suburban scenery, I wasn’t experiencing or seeing the Japan I had thought I would. I wasn’t seeing the wild Hokkaido the internet raged about. I had this image that I would be cycling along the pinnacles of mountains, through dark musty forests with bears scattering away, of raging rivers and 1,000 ft gorges. I also had some fuzzy image of what Japan would be like: Hello Kitties everywhere, little kids flying kites while speaking Japanese, and lots of dead whales. Thankfully, my images were surpassed by the realities of what I experienced.
And so a second night of wild camping in the fog behind a set of toilets is where I hit, rather quickly, a low point in my travels. I was ready to call it quits.
Ahhh, but that is why there are day 3’s. After my first day of grueling hill climbs, mountain tunnels and passes, I finally made my way to the first and never-ending beauty that is Hokkaido and Japan. I discovered that along the roads are millions of secret streams, coming from somewhere and gently going elsewhere. I discovered the subtle changes of the trees in autumn as I biked higher and higher near the heart of Hokkaido. I was in an art museum all day long, my admission costing only my ability to pedal and to see.
I made my way to Akan National Park where I camped in a real campsite with thieving crows and free hot foot baths. There was even a crystal clear volcanic lake at my tent’s edge. Truly beautiful. The smile that beamed from me that day never left.
Throughout my travels in Hokkaido I was learning the ancient art of bicycle touring, the secret pleasure of motion by pedaling, and the slower paced, non-touristic sense of discovery. Every roadside stream, every caw caw of those wily crows, every unturned rock and whispered hints of adventure were mine for the taking. I struggled with the hills and the trees, screamed with the birds and the rivers as I freewheeled downhill, rested with the rocks, cried with the roadkill, and reveled in the secret spots I called my own night after night.
I spent a little over two weeks wandering the wonderful wide shouldered roads of Hokkaido. I ventured to peninsulas seldom visited by gaijin (foreigners). I went coast to coast to see the variances of the rock formations, speed through Sapporo, visited nearly every lake the island has to offer, and slept on the earth every night. Pedaling for hours everyday became automatic. I invented games to play, made witty comments on the passing life in my near perfect British accent, and accepted humbly the many offerings made to me by the Japanese environment and it’s people: Food, money, beer, and a few English sentences.
I was also learning that it wasn’t where I was going that mattered so much. The act of getting there was the adventure. The experience that I was enjoying and expounding to those who could understand me. Like the drunken Japanese man who through gesturing let me know via two thumbs up that he approved of my journey, and then gave me 1,000 yen (about $10), or the intrepid backpacker that I ran into at three different campsites around Hokkaido that eventually gave me his guide book (in Japanese) to use for the rest of my Hokkaido travels.
Nobody would have cared about me in a car, as that separates us from each other and the wonderful world that we belong to. On a bicycle I was actively welcoming all of the wonders of nature (her good and bad) upon me and telling all those who saw me that I was here to see, learn, and listen.
As I hastily made it onto a ferry that would take me to Honshu and the bulk of my tour, I said a silent prayer for Hokkaido. Not only was it a wonderful, open, and amazingly beautiful paradise where nature blooms, but I was reborn as a bicycle tourer there, cradled on the roads and rivers that taught me what it means to ride.
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