While in Dublin we got a tour around the wonders of Trinity College (including the Book of Kells, and the enormous library that lives with it, and the skeleton of the enormous and extinct Irish Deer, which looks suspiciously like a moose) thanks to Lil (who has excellent tour-guiding skills, thanks Lil!).

Thanks to my fingers I didn’t get much sleep last night. We’re cycling uninspiring industrial coastal road into Chitose though, so I don’t feel too bad about the fact that all I can think of is my fingers. On the way we stop at a pharmacy and mange to get a mild steroid cream for me. It doesn’t help much.

We set up in a campground in urban Chitose, then try to find some more medical help. We end up at a pharmacy with a girl who phones her English teacher, who comes to the pharmacy to try and help. They are all lovely, and I go away with a numbing cream of some sort, which also doesn’t help. Tomorrow we’ll try the hospital.

Another night of not enough sleep thanks to fingers, and I spend all morning in search of, and at, the hospital. I come away with drained blisters, a stronger steroid cream, cotton gloves, and some lovely strong pain killers. We find some food in the city, I take my first pain killer, then we set off to the airport. I start slurring my words, and concentrate very hard on cycling.

As we arrive at Chitose Airport we say goodbye to the Boy, who keeps cycling south through the rest of Japan. We sit packing away our bikes into the Tardis bags, and our panniers into our low-rent stripy plastic bags, which are rapidly disintegrating. Check-in is fine (no excess luggage hurrah – we’re flying JAL, but through the oneworld Japan tickets), mosburger for dinner is tasty (my ‘bun’ consists of a fried rice patty, oh the tastiness), and the flight goes fine, spitting us out at Tokyo Haneda airport just as it is closing for the night. We can’t get to Narita tonight, but we need to be there first thing in the morning. It’s nearly midnight, and it seems pointless to try and sleep for the night. We store our luggage in lockers at a train station, and go wandering round central Tokyo.

Distance cycled 15th: 109km
Distance cycled 16th: 26km
Trip total: 1398km
Location: Shizunai – Chitose - Tokyo

We leave the campground with a tailwind behind us. It has been blowing steadily all night, so all our things are dry, and even our bike shoes don’t saturate our socks as soon as we put them on.

The coast road out to Cape Erimo gives us a windy tailwind, which gets windier and windier – by the time we reach the Cape it’s hard to stand. After a struggle we escape with our bikes and some photos, and cycle away down the other side of the Cape, into a crosswind. We lean into it to stay upright, and as it gusts we waver around all over the place, struggling to stay upright. Cars sensibly give us a wide berth, and after a few kilometres of this, the wind starts to ease off.

We spend the rest of the day cycling through small fishing towns along the coast. Lots of gravel beds for kelp drying, and men stand in the surf with long poles with hooks on the end for grabbing kelp. Fishmermen with big square backpacks sit by the roadside waiting for the fisherman bus.

It rains on and off all day, but never sets in, so we stay dry. I see a fox trotting across the road, and he stands to stare at me as I struggle up the hill towards him. It’s around this time that my fingers start hurting again. The prickly heat on the back of my fingers, acquired about two weeks ago, never really healed – now it’s forming enormous mega-blisters and swelling up so much that my fingers won’t bend.

Our camp that night has bear caution tape, and a huge group of drunken Japanese guys who are playing ball games and yelling. One comes to talk to me – I learn the Japanese word for drunk.

Distance cycled: 100km
Trip total: 1264km
Location: Cape Erimo – Shizunai Onsen

We wake up to the familiar plinking of rain on the tent. Oh dear. Well, today is a semi-rest day. Perhaps by the time we’ve finished sleeping in, it will go away? Eventually we tire of laying in the tents and retire to the picnic shelter, where things are gradually packed up.

A: What’s that alarm?
B: Oh great, a tsunami warning.

We aren’t swept away by a tsunami, and start cycling down the coast early in the afternoon. The Hiroo 7-11 provides us with warm nutritions, and we follow the angry sea through tunnels and past sea walls. The ocean seems to be trying to get us, and it rains on and off all afternoon – the views are beautiful though, so it doesn’t seem to matter so much.

As we draw towards Erimo though, suddenly there’s a patch of blue sky ahead. And the sun shines on us! And we have a strong tail wind! And then the campground is open and has hot showers AND a laundry! And there’s a wonderful sunset over the ocean and the hills rising up on the other side. The wind roars through the trees as we curl up clean and dry for a good nights sleep.

Distance cycled: 43km
Trip total: 1164km
Location: Hiroo – Cape Erimo

We pay for camping tonight! But first, the rest of the day.

We awake to the sound of no rain. Emerging from our tents, we confirm that the rain, which looked like it was setting in for the duration, has stopped. We pack up and dress ourselves in nice wet clothes and shoes. At least if it was raining this wouldn’t have been such an unpleasant sensation. After a quick food stop we set off through the countryside, which is sitting there looking all innocent and green, occasionally wafting in the breeze.

Thankfully it continues to not rain, and our layers gradually dry out. Except for the shoes. They remain nice and wet and squelchy. I can really see the value of touring in sandals now. We cruise along, stopping for food and to hunt for wild internets, and somehow, come 3.30pm, we’re at our campground in Hiroo. And it’s open! We pay Y200 each, and have a huge cooking shelter and washroom facility to play in. No showers though. Maybe we’ll have a second shower at some point while we’re in Japan. Or maybe it will just rain on us some more.

As soon as we’d gotten close to Hiroo, sitting on the coastline, a fog had started swirling around. The fog became a bit heavier and started feeling more like mizzle. Either way, it was thoroughly damp feeling by the time we went to bed. It was all kind of ominous.

Distance cycled: 95km
Trip total: 1121km
Location: Urahoro - Hiroo

The rain starts at around 4.30am. Pitter pat on the tent. Maybe it will stop soon? It doesn’t stop. We get up in the rain and cycle away in the rain. While trying to balance my bike I manage to snap the cable running to my bike computer, which we repair in the rain. After 27km we reach a Seicomart on the outskirts of Kushiro, and buy some food. We spend the next 16 or so kilometres cycling through Kushiro. In the rain. After avoiding the tempations of Fish Land, we cycle out along the coast.

The sea is angry and grey, and all the rivers rush muddily towards it. I am wet and cold and curse the pretty flowers I had been admiring previously. I will be quite content with a drought resistant garden with no pretty flowers.

We are cycling through puddles and up streams of water running down the road, it’s impossible to see where you’re cycling. I get a flat tyre. We pull into a petrol station and repair it.

After vowing to stop at the next convenience store we see, we discover that not only can we get hot bento boxes, but they have a hot fridge there! We squelch around the store and drink coffee and hot chocolate, trying to get warm before venturing out into the rain again.

On reaching the campground in Urahoro, it is closed, so we set up in the cooking shelter. I happily wander off to the washrooms to change into my nice warm, dry clothes, and discover my Deuter panniers are not up to a full day of cycling in the rain through puddles and having water sprayed at them by trucks. Their little raincoats can not stop that much water from getting in. So everything in the bottom 3/4s of the clothes pannier is wet. The bottom clothes are sopping wet. Sigh. I wear my down jacket (dry) and tracksuit pants (dry), and hang a few of the other things up, in the vague hope tumble drying fairies will visit overnight.

There are bunnies.

Distance cycled: 119km
Trip total: 1026km
Location: Lake Shirarutoro – Urahoro

Our campground acquired a fog overnight. Unperturbed, we set off into it just before 7am (yes, we’re still not letting these 3.30am sunrises get to us too much). We follow the coast for a while, then break away through farmland, discovering after 45km that we (well, Alex and I) don’t have much in the way of food, and we’re not hitting a town until the 80km mark. I start gnawing on my arm as we buckle down and cover these farmland kilometres. The hills are rolling, and the dairy cows keep looking at us.

We finally hit the promised land just after midday – there is a 7-11 in town, and it has icecream. Also other foods, but the icecream is initially of most importance. Although it’s only 18oC, my body thermostat is convinced that this is quite warm, and is protesting. Until I stop and let the cold wind blow on me, at which point it complains it’s too cold. Never happy.

After lunch we do a lot more cycling through dairy farms, and over rolling hills. The final 40km doesn’t take too long, and before you know it we’re arriving at our next closed campground. This one has hoards of cats, and a deer which comes to watch us cook.

Distance cycled: 118km
Trip total: 907km
Location: Near Rausu – Lake Shirarutoro)

Up early, we wander down to the train washrooms to freshen up, then set off along the coast just before 7am. The coastline gets much more interesting as we get further along, and there are actually seagulls (signifying genuine ocean). After 59km we start the climb up to Shiretokotoge. This will cross us to the other side of the mountain chain, from one coastline to another, reaching an altitude of 780 metres inbetween – a nice pleasant climb then.

We stop after a few kilometres at the large info centre/picnic area/tourist trap and have some lunch with the deers (much tamer than the ones you usually see around, they largely ignored us). Heading uphill again in the heat, a man yells a warning to us about a bear – apparently Japan has brown bears, although they don’t usually eat people. We do not see the bear, and eleven more kilometres of grinding along in great granny gear brings us to the pass. Where there is no icecream. I am sorely disappointed. We take some photos, then layer up for the descent before being completely swarmed by the busloads of tourists (all Japanese, as is the norm for what we see in Hokkaido) who keep pouring in and out of the parking lot.

Downhill is fun, with some occasional law breaking regarding the 30-40km/hr speed limit. We fly into Rausu, a coastal town which is cold and full of fishermen. After loitering to no purpose for a while, we cycle the final 12km to our (closed of course) campground for the night.

Cook, wash, launder, the usual. It’s nice and grassy there at least, with ocean and mountain views. Although there are a lot of ravens that seem to be fighting constantly over who will get our stuff. We manage to avoid letting any of them have it.

Location: Koshimizu – Near Rausu, Hokkaido, Japan
Distance cycled: 104km

A nice dry warm hut is a hard place to leave in the morning, even if it isn’t raining any more. Nontheless, we manage to get on the road by 7.30am, and climb the dreaded hill up and away from the lake. Before our climb begins though, we see a sign giving distances to Bihoro and Bihorotoge…

A: What’s toge mean when it’s on the end of a place name?
B: Pass. As in mountain pass.
M: Oh. Ohhh. I did not wish to know that.

So we climbed to Bihorotoge, which was shrouded in cloud and containing a scary souvenir shop. I resisted the temptation to buy a Hello Kitty towel. With nothing much to hang around for, we descended the other side of the pass, then raced along the flat farmland to Bihoro.

At Bihoro there was the traditional 7-11 food stop, this time coupled with a visit to Mister Donut (where Alex got me a couple of mini donut-burgers, which were sickeningly cute, but very tasty). A hunt for internet took us to the Co-op, where more food was purchased as we sat online in the sun.

Finally we left Bihoro, cycling through the rolling hills and farmland towards the sea (the Sea of Okhotsk). Once we hit the coastline we cycled along a flat and boring stretch of coast, with all of the towns looking a bit beaten-up and run-down. There are no seagulls, only crows – obviously it’s fake coast. Our campground for the night in Koshimizu is a disused picnic shelter – we opt to cook there, then camp out on sleeping mats at the ‘observatory’ at the top of the hill next to us. It’s a sort of look out building, with a nice view of the coast, and the mountain range in the distance that we’re to cross tomorrow. I wake up at 3.30am to see a pink stripe in the sky to signify sunrise over the mountains, then fall back to a disturbed sleep.

Location: Lake Kussharo – Koshimizu, Hokkaido, Japan
Distance cycled: 87km

It rains on and off overnight, and we get up to dampness. First up is the climb up and away from Akan Lake, and the rain starts in earnest. As we pedal uphill in the rain many Japanese military vehicles go past us, and I get a few waves and thumbs up. Finally the climb is over, and we descend in a downpour with numb hands. Well mine were getting numb until I switched to mittens. We pass a sign that says it’s 10oC, then enter Toshikaga and huddle in the Seicomart, where all who enter are greeted with deranged cheeriness, and we squelch around in bike shoes that resemble swimming pools for feet.

Fooded up, we cycled onwards to Lake Kussharo, where the proprietor takes pity on us and drops the price of a cabin, so we can afford to stay warm and dry for the night (fronting onto the lake too – luxury… although it’s just a small wooden box with a gas heater, it was home to us). We quickly turn the place into a sauna with wet clothes hanging everywhere. After a dip in the open air onsen by the lake, some dry clothes, and washing my hair in the sink, I almost feel human again.

Location: Akan – Lake Kussharo, Hokkaido, Japan
Distance cycled: 60km

One of the trials of a being a techno-geek cycle-camper is finding power to charge all your gizmos and whatsits, and wireless to access the internet. After packing up and leaving the campground early on, we wandered round Akan township, looking for power. No good location appeared (we were chased away from outside a town office when it opened, and the bathrooms, although warm, weren’t the best spot to hang out) showed itself until we stumbled across the free foot onsen that had both power and wireless available from it. The only downfall was that it was not the warmest spot in the world – lukewarm spring would have been a more accurate descriptor than hot spring.

Once fully charged we leave the onsen and find food at Lawson (similar to 7-11) down the main street – it has hot food, tables and chairs, AND power and good wireless! Paydirt. We sit on our laptops, buying more food occasionally.

Eventually we feel obliged to move on, and arriving at the campground we find they’ve now opened, and we pay Y630 each for what was free the night before (and their laundry still isn’t open). But at least the onsen there is toasty warm now. This makes up for the raven which comes to steal our matches while we’re sitting warming our feet.

Location: Akan Lake, Akan National Park, Hokkaido, Japan
Distance cycled: 10km (rest day)

During the night we’d heard a huge thunderclap overhead and then a veritable downpour. Thankfully our shelter was relatively waterproof, and we were all as dry as we had been last night. Which was not particularly.

We cycled off at about 6.30am, winding around the Lake, then climbed up through rain over the range to descend into fog. Finally the fog cleared, and we emerged into flat dry(ish) farmland.

Another town stop for food at 42km, and we started churning through kilometres, cruising through hilly farmland and being passed by Japanese army trucks constantly, going in both directions.

I start contemplating the fact that having a new set of bicycle panniers is just like moving into a new house. Suddenly you have a whole lot of new cupboards to fill, and you’re not quite sure where to put everything. So you do the best you can, and shove everything away. And initially you can never remember where you put things, and maybe some things weren’t stored in the best place. But gradually you develop a system, and learn exactly where everything belongs, and can always put your hand just on what you need.

With around 100km under our belt we start the final climb up into the hills around Akan National Park, and then the descent to the Lake. We’re now on a run of three closed campgrounds - at least the Akan one seems to be getting ready to open for Summer, with running water and open washroom facilities - although sadly their hot showers, laundry and common room are not available.

To make up for this though, they have a foot onsen! So we sit and eat dinner with our feet in mildly warm water, then set up camp in the trees at the back, hiding from the onslaught of mosquitoes and bugs.

Location: Lake Shikaribetsu - Akan Lake (Akan National Park), Hokkaido, Japan
Distance cycled: 138km