Date

2022-10-19, Wednesday

Distance

63.3 km (492.78 km in total)

Today we finally went to Cape Soya, the northernmost point of Japan, where we were supposed to officially start our journey a week ago according to our original plan. Due to an issue with the train, we ended up biking an extra 500 km from Sapporo northward to this starting point.

We passed through a very rural area along the shore, where the population is sparsely distributed. It finally feels much more like Canada's population density, which I am used to but which my Taiwanese friend finds so foreign. As the traffic got lighter and lighter, we were more and more into the very heart of Hokkaido. Yet even in this remote area, there is sometimes a sidewalk along the road, which I am not sure for whom it was paved.

I was surprised to see so many dairy farms — in fact, most land in this area is pasture presumably used for grazing — that are located so close to the ocean. Doesn't the soil become very alkaline by consequence? It's impressive that they can grow so large an expanse of grass to produce Hokkaido's impressively rich-tasting milk!

By noon, we reached Sarufutsu, which claims to be the northernmost village of Japan founded roughly 100 years ago. The first kanji of the village's name saru means monkey in Japanese, and the second one is incomprehensible for a Chinese-language speaker, thus we have given this village the nickname of monkey village (猴子村). At the only 'standard' restaurant, we ordered 3 servings of food for the two of us. The waiter must have been shocked to see empty plates in the end!

The last stretch of the road includes some horrible hills to climb in extremely windy condition. The wind up north along the coast is brutal. A quick check showed that the Japan Meteorological Agency had issued a strong wind warning — which explains why it felt like we might actually take off into the sky.

However, the view of the ocean from the top is so rewarding that it makes us forget Mother Nature's caprice. We reached the monument of the northernmost point of Japan at dusk (aka the blue hours) to find out every facility except the washrooms was closed and/or locked. We sneakily found a spacious bus shelter that had roof and door to prevent us from being blown away by the increasingly strong wind (the speed of which was at least 70 km/h, possibly up to 100 km/h), and decided to call it home for tonight, despite the visible warning on the wall that stated this place could not be used for purposes other than waiting for the bus. Lazy to cook, and still full from lunch, we purchased warm soups and drinks from the vending machine and then wished each other a good night of sleep.

P.S. We saw several Ezo deers today. They just stare at us like they are trying to decide if they should run. A bit silly, when they do flee, their fluffy white tails on the butts bounce away in a surprisingly cute way.

The full take — 21 more photographs from this day