Socks full of gravel and sleeping with strangers

Its that time again, I have managed to get myself sat in front of the laptop in a hopefully awake enough state for all of this to make sense when anyone else reads it.

When I last wrote I was in Otaru, Hokkaido recovering from a 21 hour long ferry trip and after a days rest writing and doing laundry I was ready to make a move again. I packed up and headed the 23 or so miles it was into Sapporo, the largest city in Hokkaido.

Hokkaido itself has a relatively young history having only come under direct control of Japan in the late 1700’s / early 1800’s and the island had a very different feeling to it, to me at least, Japanese for certain but at the same time with something else I couldn’t put my finger on during my brief visit.

There are certainly various influences on the Island itself, with the docks in Otaru having adverts in both Russian and Japanese, and the layout of the towns and cities on a ‘block’ style giving a very western feel.

The ride to Sapporo was relatively simple, a short run alongside one of the main roads into the city. Once into the city I was pleased to see lots of small parks dotted among the larger buildings huddled around the train station that seems to live at the heart of all Japanese cities.

I arrived at my hotel for the next day or so and headed out to wander the city for something to eat. I eventually ended up at a local burger place as sometimes happens when I’m tired, I love the food in Japan but exhaustion makes me lazy and it can be an effort to figure out what you are eating sometimes. Lucky for me the burger was amazing so I went to sleep dreaming of the Honey mustard sauce I had eaten.

The next day I had planned to wander around the nearby Botanical gardens however rain had moved in so I spent my time walking through the city, visiting the various sights and enjoying a relaxed day as a tourist before an early night to rest to the next days ride.

The weather was coming in strong and I had decided to press on south to Tomakomai to get a ferry back to the mainland that evening at 7pm, I hadn’t clicked with Hokkaido and the weather had made my mind up for me to leave.

The rain had reduced to a slight drizzle when I left the hotel but the wind was picking up and blowing straight at me, I crawled out of Sapporo up a long slow gradient. The long winters in Hokkaido must play havoc with the roads and footpaths as they were badly rutted and breaking apart, with the spray from my back wheel showering the back of my legs with rain and grit from the ground.

I was loathed to stop in the conditions, knowing that I would only feel the cold once my heart rate dropped and my body temperature lowered after exercising, however after around 35 miles I was getting close to the ferry so I decided to double check the times and have a quick energy gel in a conveniently placed bus shelter. To my horror I discovered that the cash I had taken out the previous day was no longer in my wallet, I rushed through checking my bags trying not to soak the contents but with no luck, I had lost a substantial amount of cash and didn’t have enough to pay for the evenings ferry.

A quick, and rather stressed call home resulted in me being bailed out yet again, and I was soon back on my way, cold, wet and filthy with grime from the road cursing myself for my stupidity.

My misery was compounded when I arrived at the ferry terminal to find it sold out for that nights crossing, after a quick internal debate I gave up and booked a hotel for the night, the days first sensible decision. Once at the hotel I set about washing my luggage, shoes and self, the grit had not only coated my legs (yes I was wearing shorts, less clothes to wash afterwards) but had run down into my socks, coating my ankles and rubbing the skin away in a few areas.

I had a quick shower, then headed to the Onsen in the hotel for a long needed soak while my washing sloshed about in the adjacent laundry room. Heaven is a long soak in a bath followed with fresh clean and warm clothes.

Not needed a hair dryer for a while but they come in handy sometimes.

I woke up in a much better mood the following morning, the sun was shining all though the wind remained, so I loaded up the bike after rinsing off the worst of the previous days muck and headed down to the ferry terminal. I was only a couple of miles away so I soon arrived to find that the desk didn’t open until 15:30, undeterred I called up the ferry company and via a translator booked my ticket for the evening. It being the final Friday of golden week the only remaining cabins were the cheapest option so I went with that, hoping that I wouldn’t have to row for too long and wondering if the drum would keep me up at night.

With quite a few hours to kill I decided to show the bike some TLC, the previous day had taken its toll on the poor thing and it was squeaking, rattling and the front brake was pretty much non existent. I parked up outside a 7-11 (cant go wrong with a free sink and loo) and set about swapping the pads over on the front brake, thankfully it was a pretty simple job and I was done in about ten minutes.

Deciding that the job needed doing properly I rode to the nearest bike shop and grabbed some cleaning wipes and a small can of the local WD-40 equivalent. There was a park nearby so I pulled the luggage off the bike and set about scraping off the grime, grit had gotten everywhere, filling up allen bolt heads and even rubbing away my name decal on one side of the bike where my shorts had been touching. The wipes I bought were pretty decent and got the majority of the rubbish off so I coated everything in the multipurpose oil and gave it a good wipe down with a clean cloth.

I was admiring my handy work when a local popped over to see what was happening, he was a friendly sort and despite us not really understanding each other we had a good chat, after he headed off I loaded the bike back up and was getting ready to move when he came back with a massive bag of crisps and a bottle of Coffee! We chatted a little more and after I drank some of the very sweet coffee he seemed happy enough and we parted ways for the final time.

I still had a couple of hours left to kill so I grabbed some dinner before heading to the ferry terminal with my crisps and sundry other snacks I had grabbed at the 7-11. The terminal was busy but I didn’t have to wait long to sort my tickets so settled down with a book to while away the last hour or so.

Once it was time I headed down to the ferry and was allowed to cycle aboard under my own steam. I headed up to my cabin and found that my bed was what appeared to be three chair mats, a block of foam and a small duvet, surrounded by 15 other people.

Thankfully I was by a wall so I got as comfortable as I could and tried to get some sleep, headphones in to keep the noise out. It was fairly simple until around 2 am when an older gent slightly worse for wear (the boat wasn’t moving that much), got his footing wrong and landed on top of two rather surprised and understandably angry people. Luckily it was on the opposite side of the room to me but the commotion woke me up and I struggled to get any more rest, working out potential trajectories our unstable friend may find next.

I was spared from being squashed by any fellow inmates and by about 9 am the following morning we were coming close to Sendai port, I packed up and headed out to the back of the boat and was soon rolling off the ferry onto the wet dockside after what must have been a pretty heavy shower.

It was a short ride to Sendai and I had booked a cheap hotel to get a good nights rest so I dropped my bags off and set out for a wander, my body still rolling from the boat. Sendai is a lovely city with streets lined with trees and it was sunny but cold when I was exploring. It was children’s day so families were out walking or heading to some event all giving the place a lovely relaxed atmosphere, I grabbed a couple of Donuts and sat down in a park to relax for a few hours before heading back to the hotel for the evening.

I headed north the next morning, I had seen a YouTube video about a place called Onagawa and how it was rebuilding after the 2011 Tsunami so I decided to ride the 40 miles there to see the town for myself. The ride from Sendai followed a few busy roads at first but was soon rolling through fields and small towns, it was difficult not to think about what happened to the area but other than some empty lots and road building work you wouldn’t have had any idea.

I arrived at Onagawa and after having a quick look around the shops in the new high street including a full size cardboard Lamborghini (no I’m not kidding), I headed to my accommodation for the night. My hotel was made up of around 20 or 30 static caravans that had been used as emergency housing following the Tsunami, they had been refitted and used here to create a place for visitors to stay, one of the great little ideas that are all adding up in Onagawa.

The new train station built in the town is a spectacular design and also rather handily contains an onsen so I ended my day with a relaxing soak.

Rain played its part again the following day as I went back south and rather than reliving the misery of my ride from Sapporo I had a short 12 mile ride to a nearby hostel, handily placed next to a great little bike shop where for ¥500 (£3.40) the bearings on my pedals were cleaned and re packed with grease, ridding me of the awful grinding noise that had accompanied me the past few days.

My hostel was very cheap so I was pleasantly surprised to find that first of all I was the only occupant of the dormitories, and secondly there was a fantastic restaurant attached. I waited out the evenings storm eating Swiss Raclette melted over fresh bread and bacon feeling very happy with the world.

I was regretting the cheese the next morning as the sheer quantity of it weighed me down and made me feel decidedly bloated and sluggish for the majority of the morning to come. Helping fight the dairy induced lethargy was a fantastic tailwind and I was cruising along at a great rate. Passing a local JSDF airbase I saw several planes taking off and for the next three miles was treated to what felt like my own private display as the planes banked and twisted in the sky in formation, smoke trails following behind them.

The next surprise came about half way in my journey, ahead on the opposite side of the road I saw another cyclist with panniers so I rode over to say hello. To my surprise it was the very same Italian rider I had met going the opposite way on the Shimanami Kaido, nearly a month and around 700 miles away! We both had a good laugh at the chances of that happening and caught up with each others progress, after swapping information on routes and camping spots we parted ways again.

And that brings me back to Sendai, I have around three weeks left of my trip and will be heading south through the Fukashima and Ibaraki prefectures before riding through Chiba and back to Yokahama and Tokyo for my flight home. As always I will try to keep you updated as I go.