Saturday, August 09, 2003
We spent most of last week away from home. We drove all the way up to the most northern point of Japan (Cape Soya), stopping for one night at a campsite right on the coast on the way up. Camping is a little strange here (can't really put my finger on why, it just is), but very cheap. There are never any showers at these campsites though, but there are always onsens nearby...
The second night we stayed at a site just outside Wakkanai, the most northern city of Japan. This site was high on a hillside with really good views over the city and sea. And it was free! There seem to be lots of free sites around Hokkaido. We ended up going to a swimming pool in the city and using the showers there to get clean. The pool was setup in a ring circuit where the water went around, so you didn't have to swim, it kept pushing you around. Very shallow too. But it was a nice complex with water slides, a waterfall pool and a hot tub up on a raised platform. We weren't able to go in the normal 25m pool as we had no swimming caps. Also, the receptionist asked us if we had swimming costumes - maybe she thought that we'd confuse the etiquette of a pool with an onsen and go in nude...
The third night (at the same site) was not so good. There was a very bad rainstorm and as we were on the top of a mountain it got pretty rough. There was also the possibility of bears - there had been a bear attack a year ago, it was almost the one year anniversary that day. So, we were extra careful about keeping food around. Most people seemed to be eating and getting rid of the evidence quickly. The trash canisters were located in big steel cages with chains on them.
The rain got worse and worse through the night until eventually rivers were flowing by the tent and the ground was saturated, so at 2am we had to run to the car - we got extremely soaked in the process! It's difficult to sleep in a car though because the sun rises at just after 3.30am, so we hung up old towels and stuff around the windows to try and keep the light
out. In the morning we drove all the way home from there (8 hours) with lots of stop offs on the way, including lunch at a strange family restaurant in a department store on the edge of Shibetsu city, that looked on to a seemingly communist concrete apartment block. But the food was very good as it almost always is here!
We also drove through Daisetsuzan national park on the way back too, it has really nice scenery - gorges and waterfalls - and the road is amazing, lots of steep drops, hairpins etc.
Today we're planning to go to an outdoor onsen if the weather's not too bad. There's been a big typhoon hitting Japan, a very bad one it seems. The tail end seems to have passed us by now though.
The second night we stayed at a site just outside Wakkanai, the most northern city of Japan. This site was high on a hillside with really good views over the city and sea. And it was free! There seem to be lots of free sites around Hokkaido. We ended up going to a swimming pool in the city and using the showers there to get clean. The pool was setup in a ring circuit where the water went around, so you didn't have to swim, it kept pushing you around. Very shallow too. But it was a nice complex with water slides, a waterfall pool and a hot tub up on a raised platform. We weren't able to go in the normal 25m pool as we had no swimming caps. Also, the receptionist asked us if we had swimming costumes - maybe she thought that we'd confuse the etiquette of a pool with an onsen and go in nude...
The third night (at the same site) was not so good. There was a very bad rainstorm and as we were on the top of a mountain it got pretty rough. There was also the possibility of bears - there had been a bear attack a year ago, it was almost the one year anniversary that day. So, we were extra careful about keeping food around. Most people seemed to be eating and getting rid of the evidence quickly. The trash canisters were located in big steel cages with chains on them.
The rain got worse and worse through the night until eventually rivers were flowing by the tent and the ground was saturated, so at 2am we had to run to the car - we got extremely soaked in the process! It's difficult to sleep in a car though because the sun rises at just after 3.30am, so we hung up old towels and stuff around the windows to try and keep the light
out. In the morning we drove all the way home from there (8 hours) with lots of stop offs on the way, including lunch at a strange family restaurant in a department store on the edge of Shibetsu city, that looked on to a seemingly communist concrete apartment block. But the food was very good as it almost always is here!
We also drove through Daisetsuzan national park on the way back too, it has really nice scenery - gorges and waterfalls - and the road is amazing, lots of steep drops, hairpins etc.
Today we're planning to go to an outdoor onsen if the weather's not too bad. There's been a big typhoon hitting Japan, a very bad one it seems. The tail end seems to have passed us by now though.
# posted by Phil T : 5:29 pm
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