Day 1 & 2 - a nice start!

As the pictures on Facebook might suggest I managed to secure a mighty fine touring bike, relatively cheap as well. The bags, (4 in total) was included and the only extra thing I paid for was a front light. Had the back light already! 

Now the story of what happened when I came to the bike shop is quite fascinating. See, I thought I had little if any chances of finding the whole package. So I asked for a road racer after explaining my intentions. Which I'm getting quite good at now! The owners wife looked at me, (the owner was fixing a bike for a costumer), she must have thought I was kidding with all the luggage I was carrying. (It's not that much though...)

She showed me the only touring bike they had left. Wheel size could be bigger, but I could adjust the seat. 104.255 yen with proper registration and all, that's about 6500 dkk. If you're lucky you might find a frame or a really used one in Denmark for the same price. Adding the price of the bags would make it two bikes if not more here in Japan. 

I talked a lot with the old couple in the store, they were really nice and I'm glad I took the chance and waited to buy the bike. This is the biggest victory so far!

I rode back to the station, attached all the gear, bike computer and even my suitcase. When I was done the sun had set. It does quite early in Japan. I saw a couple of riders along the way and I talked to one who was going to sleep in front of the station, he was waiting for the next train back to a small city were he was going to take a ferry back to Osaka. I don't know why, but he didn't seem as enthusiastic to talk to me as I was to talk to him so I left him and wondered what I should do next. Sleep there or start my journey. It was getting late so I decided to get dinner. And after that I went on to the most northern point of Japan. 

I saw signs about deer and bears, lucky I only got to see the deer, haha. I saw lots of them actually. And foxes. One was particularly playful and kept following me after I got to my destination. There were so many things up there, monuments for peace was what most of them were dedicated to. 

I slept in the entrance of a lookout and information house and was therefore free of insects!

Next morning I woke up and looked outside and saw a pretty big deer who was going around like it owned the place. It was so early and no one was there. I took some more pictures and took a stone to keep. Then I tossed out the suitcase after rearranging my gear. 

Then I went on to ride for more than 8 hours, not included breaks. But I did have some, my computer just stops counting time when I'm not moving! (So convenient!)

Today ended with a nice bath at an Onsen in Haboro. I'm going to stay here and wake up early tomorrow to continue. I went some 20 km. longer than I had planned to, but I think I will get an extra day by doing this so I might continue. It's relatively flat here and I'm saving my strength for the mountains later so I might as well ride long and not as fast on the long, flat parts here in Hokkaido. 

People are nice here too, riders, both on bike and motorcycle, are waving. Dairy farms are everywhere and the weather is perfect. I do hope for some clouds tomorrow though.
I'll be leaving the coast side again and seeking inland which means a bit more hills and maybe even more wildlife! Tomorrow's destination is Takikawa, but let's see it I can't ride a bit longer. 

That's it for now, I'm getting good at finding free WiFi, let's hope I can find some tomorrow too. 

Distance: 160 km. Plus
Time: 8 hours plus.
Condition: clean and comfortable.
Quote: what does the fox say?